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THE  BRITISH  ACADEMY 

The  Celtic  Inscriptions 
of  Cisalpine  Gaul 

By 

Sir  John  Rhys 

Fellow  of  the  Academy 


\^From  the  Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy,  Vol.  VI] 


London 

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Celtae  and  Galli 

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The  Celtic  Inscriptions  of  France  and  Italy 

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Notes  on  the  Coligny  Calendar 

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The  Celtic  Inscriptions  of  Gaul 

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THE    CELTIC    INSCRIPTIONS    OF 
CISALPINE    GAUL 

By  sir  JOHN  RHYS 

FELLOW    OF    THE    ACADEMY 

Read  Jan.  29,  1913. 

Thts  paper  is  a  belated  contribution  to  the  study  of  a  subject  of 
great  interest  to  Celtic  scholars.  I  had  long  been  aware  of  the 
existence  of  a  few  remarkable  Celtic  inscriptions  on  ancient  tomb- 
stones in  Italy,  and  following  in  the  path  of  our  illustrious  colleagU2, 
the  late  Whitley  Stokes,  I  wrote  about  some  of  them  and  set  others 
aside  as  being  in  my  opinion  not  Celtic,  though  he  had  accepted 
them  as  such.  I  am  referring  to  my  paper  read  to  the  Academy 
in  1906  on  'The  Celtic  Inscriptions  of  France  and  Italy',  a  title 
which  was  too  wide,  seeing  how  little  Italy  figured  in  my  list  at  that 
time.  I  was  also  aware  that  there  was  a  mass  of  inscribed  objects 
to  which  Carl  Pauli  had  devoted  the  first  part  of  his  Altitalisclie 
Forscliimgen  as  early  as  1885 ;  but  I  regarded  most  of  that  as  a  field 
too  dangerous  to  invade,  all  the  more  so  as  Mommsen  had  previously 
covered  most  of  the  ground  and  had  often  struggled  in  vain  with 
the  inadequate  data  supplied  to  him. 

My  reluctance  to  study  the  kind  of  material  to  which  I  allude,  in 
quest  of  more  early  Celtic,  was  overcome  by  a  recent  paper  by  the 
Upsala  professor.  Dr.  Danielsson,  Zu  den  venetischen  und  lepontischen 
Inschriften^  and  by  his  friendly  challenge  on  his  nineteenth  page.  Here 
I  may  explain  that  to  avoid  committing  himself  beforehand  to  the 
celticity  of  the  inscriptions  which  occupy  these  notes,  he  uses  lepontisch 
as  a  neutral  term  derived  from  the  name  of  the  ancient  Lepontii, 
referring  to  whom  Caesar  wrote  (iv.  10) :  '  Rhenus  autem  oritur  ex 
Lepontiis,  qui  Alpes  incolunt.'  Modern  geographers  have  accustomed 
us  to  the  term  Lepontine  Alps,  but  what  is  more  interesting  is  the 
fact  that  the  upper  course  of  the  Ticino  is  called  the  '  Val  Leventina  \ 
thereby  perpetuating  the  ancient  name  in  all  probability  without  any 
interruption  of  phonological  continuity. 

VI  2d  1 

284367 


2 .   . .  JPIIOGREDINGS  '  OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

In  the  summer  of  1911  I  began  to  make  inquiries  as  to  the  places 
where  to  look  for  the  incriptions  which  had  begun  to  interest  me  ; 
that  is,  in  what  collections,  public  or  private,  I  could  actually  see  and 
handle  them.  On  the  whole  the  scholars  who  had  written  about 
them  produced  on  me  the  impression  that  they  had  entered  into  a 
conspiracy  of  silence  on  the  point :  that  impression  was  of  course 
wrong.  It  was  not  a  conspiracy  of  silence,  it  was  ignorance  of  facts, 
which  they  had  not  made  serious  efforts  to  remove.  I  soon  found  that 
this  was  by  no  means  easy  to  do,  and  my  first  trouble  was  that  I  did  not 
know  whither  to  direct  my  inquiries.  At  last  I  seemed  to  have  got  my 
information  complete,  but  when  I  proceeded  to  put  it  to  the  test,  I  found 
that,  except  in  the  case  of  two  or  three  of  the  more  important  museums, 
hardly  anything  was  to  be  found  where  I  had  been  led  to  expect  it. 
What  with  my  own  stupidity  and  that  of  others,  I  never  had  so  many 
disappointments  in  any  other  single  month  as  in  that  of  April,  1912. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  speak  too  gratefully  of  the  invariable 
kindness  with  which  I  was  treated,  and  of  the  help  I  received  in  all 
possible  ways.  Moreover,  it  is  right  to  say  that  sometimes  when 
I  failed  to  find  what  I  was  looking  for,  I  found  something  else, 
perhaps  of  no  less  value,  apart  from  its  being  in  any  case  an  addition 
to  the  list,  it  being  understood,  of  course,  that  what  I  missed  had 
been  recorded  and  had,  to  take  even  the  worst  view  of  it,  not  been 
wholly  lost  to  archaeological  science. 

Nevertheless,  one  likes  to  see  and  handle  the  precious  remains  them- 
selves, and  partly  for  a  reason  which  the  student  of  the  ancient  lapi- 
dary literature  of  the  Latin  language  can  hardly  be  expected  fully  to 
appreciate.  Latin  inscriptions  exist  in  their  thousands,  and  they  help 
to  interpret  one  another.  They  are  also  on  an  average  comparatively 
easy  to  read,  owing  to  the  letters  being  well  cut  and  to  the  cutting 
having  been  done  on  a  surface  levelled  and  polished  for  the  purpose. 
But  one  is  told,  *  You  can  always  get  photographs.'  That  is  true, 
but  the  value  of  a  photograph  is  often  rendered  questionable  by  the 
senseless  habit  which  they  have  in  some  museums  of  undertaking  to 
paint  the  grooves  of  the  letters,  in  North  Italy  with  some  kind  of  black 
pigment,  and  in  France  with  red  lead,  which,  let  us  hope,  is  no  longer 
used  there  for  such  a  purpose.  In  this  process  what  happens  is  that 
letters  receive  features  not  their  own,  while  others  lose  a  limb  or  two. 
Who  does  the  painting  I  have  never  succeeded  in  ascertaining :  he  is 
always  anonymous.  For  short,  therefore,  we  may  call  him  the  Office 
Boy,  and  it  is  intolerable  that  he  should  be  the  one  to  provide  the 
texts  for  the  study  of  epigraphy  and  ancient  phonology.  In  Greek 
and  Latin  inscriptions  the  mischief  cannot  be  so  serious,  since  those 


THE   CELTIC  INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    3 

languages  are  so  well  known  to  scholars  that  they  can  seldom  be  led 
far  astray.  It  is  far  otherwise  in  the  case,  for  instance,  of  early  Celtic, 
of  which  we  have  only  a  glimmering  idea :  hence  the  importance  to  the 
student  of  seeing  for  himself  the  texts  on  which  he  has  to  base  the 
foundations  of  his  study.  I  could  illustrate  my  words  by  means  of 
photographs  which  I  have  had  procured  for  me  on  various  occasions : 
some  of  them  are  worse  than  useless,  inasmuch  as  they  are  definitely 
misleading.  I  cannot  use  them  except  now  and  then,  perhaps,  to  give 
R  general  idea  of  an  inscription  and  the  distribution  of  it  on  the  stone 
that  bears  it. 

The  plan  of  this  paper  is  very  simple :  it  divides  the  area  with  which 
it  deals  into  four  districts,  as  follows  : — 

I.  Lugano  and  the  country  immediately  surrounding  it  in  the 
Canton  Ticino.  And  there,  having  begun  with  a  tombstone  bearing 
two  inscriptions  of  a  philologically  instructive  nature,  and  having 
described  them,  I  append  some  account  of  the  treatment  of  the 
disputed  question  of  dative  and  genitive  to  which  they  give  rise, 
and  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  dealt  with  by  the  scholars  who  have 
discussed  it.  Then  the  other  inscriptions  of  the  district  are  gone 
through  one  by  one  in  the  light  of  the  two  previously  chosen  for 
treatment. 

II.  The  Vallis  Diubiasca,  the  name  of  which  is  perpetuated  in  the 
modern  Giubiasco,  the  centre  of  numerous  and  important  finds,  cover- 
ing the  valley  embracing  the  basin  of  the  Ticino  from  Locarno 
at  the  head  of  Lago  Maggiore  to  some  distance  beyond  Bellinzona, 
its  present  political  centre.  To  this  I  have  ventured  to  add  the 
course  of  the  Moesa,  with  the  little  town  of  iVIesocco  in  the  southern 
corner  of  the  Canton  Graubdnden,  or  the  Grisons,  as  people  speaking 
French  call  it. 

III.  The  third  region  is  politically  all  in  Italy,  and  forms  a  sort 
of  zone  south  of  the  Lugano  district  and  bounded  by  a  curve  drawn 
from  the  neighbourhood  of  Lecco  to  Milan,  thence  to  Novara,  and 
from  there  to  Lago  d'Orta  and  Ornavasso  on  the  way  to  Domodossola. 

IV.  There  are  a  few  inscriptions  which  are  so  placed  as  to  suggest 
a  fourth  district,  to  wit,  the  country  round  the  Lago  di  Garda. 

Those  four  regions  make  up  the  Cisalpine  Gaul  of  this  paper, 
linguistic  areas  the  boundaries  of  which  may  be  expected  to  be 
enlarged  by  future  finds. 


2d  1-2 


4  PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

I 

1.  The  first  inscriptions  which  I  wish  to  mention  are  two  that  occur 
on  a  tombstone  found  at  Davesco  in  the  Valle  Capriasca,  north-east  of 
Lugano,  in  the  Swiss  Canton  of  the  Ticino.  It  seems  to  comme- 
morate a  man  and  his  wife,  and  it  forms  Pauh's  no.  11  :  he  quotes 
a  statement  that  near  it  were  found  many  human  bones.  According 
to  him,  in  1885,  the  stone  was  in  the  possession  of  a  certain  Dr.  Vanelli ; 
since  then  it  has  found  its  way  to  the  museum  at  Chur  (pronounced 
Kur,  French  Coire,  Italian  Coira),  where  I  saw  it  in  April,  1912.  In 
both  cases  the  lines  containing  the  inscription  approach  one  another  so 
as  to  form  the  crude  outline  of  a  human  head.  Two  other  epitaphs 
have  dots  on  the  face  crudely  indicating  the  eyes  :  see  photograph  I, 

5  (1)  Stabbio,  and  Pauli's  facsimile  of  the  Sorengo  stone,  his  no.  14 : 
see  also  pages  16  and  20  below.  I  owe  the  Chur  photographs  to 
the  kindness  of  Dr.  Jecklin,  the  keeper  of  the  museum,  whose  help 
in  various  ways  during  my  visit  was  most  acceptable  ;  since  then  he 
has  also  kindly  answered  questions  of  mine  more  than  once. 

(1)  One  of  the  epitaphs  runs  as  follows,  reading  from  right  to 
left  :- 

AvIA1ilAvlA>!<iaVilAMA>I^ 

That  is,  Slaniai  Verhalai  Pala,  which  may  be  literally  rendered  '  For 
Slania  Verkala,  a  grave  or  burial  place '.  The  fact  that  this  alphabet 
had  no  letters  for  the  voiced  consonants  h,  c?,  g  leaves  us  at  liberty  to 
treat  Verkalai  as  representing  Vergalai^  which  will  be  seen  presently 
have  been  the  probable  pronunciation  ;  but  it  is  not  open  to  us  to  treat 
pala  as  hala  for  the  reason  that  pala  occurs  with  p  in  an  inscription 
which  is  written  in  the  Roman  alphabet,  and  is  to  be  noticed  later. 
The  interpretation  oi pala  as  grave  or  tomb  is  due  to  the  well-known 
philologist,  Paul  Kretschmer  :  see  Kuhn's  Zeitschrift  fur  vergl.  Sprach- 
forschung,  XXXVIII.  101,  where  he  connects  it  with  Welsh  and 
Cornish  pal '  a  spade  \  Welsh  jsaZw  '  to  dig  \  Corn,  palas,  the  same.  To 
pal,  pronounced  (according  to  the  rule  for  unblocked  vowels  in  Mod. 
Welsh  monosyllables)  pal^  one  may  add  paladr  '  a  shaft ',  Irish  celtair 
'  a  spear  or  lance  \  That  would  go  to  prove  the  stem  to  have  been 
qual-,  represented  in  Latin  by  vallus  '  a  stake,  a  palisade ',  and 
vallum  '  a  wall  provided  with  stakes,  a  paling,  intrenchment  \  See 
Walde's  Lateiiiisches  etijmologischcs  Wiirtcrhuch,  s.  vv.  vallus,  valles, 
and  vapo?;  which  he  would  trace  to  a  stem  qnap-}     Should  this  con- 

^  MHicn  Stokes  in  his  Urkeltlschor  Sprarhsv.hatz,  forniinji:  vohinie  II  of  Kick's 
Veryleichcndes   Worterlmch,  p.  57,  referred  >\'elsli  jmlu  '  to  di^  '  and  sucli  Old 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL     5 

jecture  prove  tenable  jwaZa  would  seem  to  be  a  Gaulish  word  indicating 
a  plot  of  ground  marked  off  for  a  burial  place  with  stakes.  In  the 
instances  where  the  pala  formula  occurs,  we  may  presume  that  tiie 
burial  ground  was  secured  in  the  lifetime  of  the  person  or  persons  who 
intended  to  be  interred  there,  a  practice  not  unusual  in  the  case  of 
Roman  monuments  as  proved  by  such  formulae  as  se  vivo  or  et  sihi 
et  siiis. 

In  any  case  the  'pala'  was  something  to  or  for  the  person  men- 
tioned ;  for  it  is  impossible  for  the  most  part  to  make  anything  of 
the  endings  of  the  names  in  the  formula  except  endings  of  the  dative 
case.  In  this  instance  we  have  a  woman's  name  Slaniai  Vergalai ; 
and  by  its  side  occurs  on  the  same  stone,  a  man's  name,  probably 
her  husband's,  Tisiui  Pivotialui ;  and  the  other  Lepontine  inscriptions 
of  the  same  district,  to  wit,  Lugano,  count  among  them  the  following 
instances  of  pala: — (  Ve)rl:omid  pala,  mas.  (p.  15).  Aaipala,  fern.  (p.  14). 
Otiiii  pala,  mas.  (p.  14)  .  .  .  kionei  p{ala),  and  .  .  .  an'iui  p{ala),  mas. 
(p.  22).  Pivonei  TeMalu'i  pala,  mas.  (p.  20).  These  names,  if  mascu- 
line, would  probably  be  in  the  nominative  Tisios  Pivotialos,  {Ve)r- 
komos.  Olios,  .  .  .  anios,  Pivonis  Tekialos ;  and  the  feminine  singular 
nominatives  would  be  Slanid  Verkald  and  Ad,  while  Pivonei  and  .  .  . 
Jvionei  being  presumably  of  the  i  declension  would  have  the  nomina- 
tives Pivo7iis  and  . . .  kionis  of  either  gender.  Here  we  are  immediately 
concerned  with  the  feminine  dative  in  -di  which  is  countenanced  by 
instances  in  Gaul,  namely,  Aiovi'iaL  'to  or  for  the  goddess  Aiunia', 
and  EcTKeyyat  BXavbooviKovfiai  ^  '  to  Escenga  daughter  of  Blandouic- 
unos ' ;  see  my  Celtic  Inscr.  qf  France  and  Italy,  nos.  viii  and  ix 
(pp.  19-21). 

The  name  here  in  question  Slaniai  Verkalai  represents,  as 
already  suggested,  the  nominative  Sldnid   Vergdld.     To  begin  with 

Irish  forms  as  cechlatar  ^foderuut',  vo-chloth  'fuudata  est'^  and  to-chlaim  '  ich 
grabe '  to  tlie  same  root  qual-,  he  left  out  the  Welsh  forms  cladu  '  to  dig  or 
hollow  out  a  place  in  the  ground,  ofteuer  now  to  bury  in  such  hollow ' ,  and  dawd 
'  a  fosse  or  ditch,  now  mostly  a  dyke  or  fence  standing  above  ground '.  These 
and  kindred  forms  in  AVelsh  make  it  impossible  to  refer  the  Irish  to  qiial--  ^Vheu 
an  animal  such  as  the  dog  buries  a  bone  or  a  piece  of  flesh  in  the  ground  for 
future  food,  he  has  first  to  scratch  a  hole  in  which  to  make  the  deposit  and  then 
to  cover  it  up  :  the  principal  and  most  tedious  operation  is  the  scratching,  and  I 
should  be  inclined  to  refer  the  clad-  words  here  in  question  to  the  same  origin  as 
English  cratch,  scratch,  German  kratzen  :  see  the  New  English  Dictionary.  In 
any  case  the  \Velsh  vocables  are  not  to  be  severed  from  the  Irish  ones.  Windisch 
noticed  this  but  hesitated  to  decide  :  see  Kuhn's  Beitriige  sur  vergl.  Sprachfor- 
schuDg,  VIII.  39. 

'  Thurneysen,  in  his  Handbuch  des  Altirischen,  p.  181,  regards  the  latter  as 
'  griechische  Kasusform '  ;  but  he  does  not  give  his  reason  for  thinking  so. 
Compare  Danielsson's  paper,  loc.  cit. ,  p.  17. 


6         PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

Sldnia  ;  ^  this  implies  a  masculine  Slanios  in  early  Goidelic.  We 
have  compounds  also  such  as  Sldnoll  (Bk.  of  Leinster,  fo.  19% 
Slanoll,  ibid.  329^),  and  derivatives  such  as  Slandn  (Stokes  &  Strachan's 
Thesmirus  PalaeoMbernicus,  II.  364).  There  is  some  uncertainty  as 
to  the  quantity  of  the  vowel  of  the  first  syllable ;  we  may  perhaps 
regard  it  as  originally  long  in  them  all,  and  treat  the  etymon  as 
repiesented  by  the  common  Irish  adjective  slan^  'whole,  healthy, 
healed,  secure,  safe,  sound,  well,  perfect,  complete,  entire,  uninjured  \ 
The  simple  adjective  sldno-s,  sldnd,  had  a  derivative  sldnio-s,  sldnid, 
which  in  Gaulish  would  be  sounded  sldniio-s,  sldniid  :  it  is  therefore 
represented  in  Welsh  by  the  correct  equivalent  llonyd  'quiet,  con- 
tented, tranquil'. 

We  now  come  to  the  next  vocable,  written  Verkalai^  which  I  have 
ventured  to  treat  as  Vergalai,  the  dative  implying  a  nominative 
Vergald,  feminine  of  Vergalo-s.  I  should  regard  the  dative  as 
an  adjective  qualifying  Sldnidi,  being  made  up  of  nerg-  and  the 
termination  -dlo-s^  -did,  which  is  best  known  in  Welsh  in  such  words 
as  misdid,  misol '  monthly '  from  mis  '  month  \  nefdzcl,  nefol  '  heavenly  ' 
from  nef '  heaven ',  and  hosts  of  others  including  among  them  some 
which  appear  to  have  been  substantives,  like  the  Welsh  epdiil,  ebol 
'  a  colt '  from  epos  '  a  horse ' ;  givenndwl,  gxcennol  '  a  swallow ',  Ir. 
fannall,  fandall,  fern,  'a  swallow'  (Book  of  the  Dunn  62\  Windisch, 
Tain  B6  Cuaihge,  p.  972^) ;  see  Stokes  (Fick  II.  261)  who  gives  the 
early  form  as  vannello-  or  venndlo-  the  latter  of  which  is  supported 
by  the  Welsh  form  ;  and  7norawl  (Oxford  Mabinogion,  p.  Ill),  which 
is  a  derivative  from  mdr  'sea'  and  seems  to  have  meant  a  harbour, 
or  a  tract  of  sea,  more  or  less  land-bound,  where  ships  might  anchor.^ 

^  In  point  of  form  this  would  yield  in  Irish  a  feminine  singular  nominative  and 
genitive,  Slane  or  Slaine,  which  we  appear  to  have  in  Aed  Sldne  '  Aed  of  Slane'  : 
there  was  a  '  civitas  quae  vocatur  Slane '  in  County  Meath  (Thes.  Palaeoh. ,  pp.  259, 
274,  298),  and  it  was  also  the  name  of  the  river  Slaney.  But  it  should  be  noticed 
that  these  names  have  sometimes  a  spelling  with  ng  instead  of  n,  Slange,  Slainge 
(see  Hogan's  Onomasticon  Goedelicum)  :  should  these  latter  spellings  represent 
the  original  pronunciation,  the  name  has  no  place  here ;  see  Stokes  in  Fick's 
Vergkichendes  Worterhuch,  II.  319,  s.  v.  slangio-. 

^  It  is  also  given  as  the  name  of  a  spring-well ;  see  Stokes's  Patrick,  p.  323, 
where  one  reads  of  the  Saint  coming  to  the  well  of  Findmag,  which  was  called 
Slan,  '  quia  indicatum  illi  quod  honorabant  magi  fontem  et  immolaverunt  dona 
ad  ilium  in  modum  dei '.  They  also  gave  it  a  name  which  is  given  in  Latin  as 
Aquarum  Rex.     See  also  Hogan's  Ononi.,  s.  v.  Sldn,  and  SIdn  Fdtraic. 

^  Since  this  type  was  set  up  I  have  called  to  mind  two  more—?/  vanachol  'the 
monastery  ',  and  Hafodol,  now  y  Fodol  or  Fodol,  the  name  of  an  Anglesey  farm, 
derived  from  hafod  '  a  sunnner  place  or  sheiling '.  See  '  Lly vyr  Agkyr  Llau- 
dewivrevi '  in  the  Anecdota  Oxoniensia ,  pp.  110.,  274. 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE  GAUL    7 

The  adjectival  use  of  -al-o-  corresponds  pretty  nearly  to  that  of  -dl-i- 
in  Latin,  and  just  as  annalis  is  derived  from  anmis  'a  year',  we  may 
regard  Vergald  as  derived  from  a  name  Vergo-s  (possibly  Vergrc-s)  of 
the  same  origin  as  the  first  element  in  Vergohreto-s,  a  Gaulish  term 
supposed  to  mean  uidicio  efficax — according  to  Mommsen,i?^c/i/5rcirA:er, 
one  who  has  power  to  execute  his  verdicts.  The  word  is  of  the  same 
origin  as  the  Old  Breton  guerg  '  efficax '  and  the  English  word  '  work' ; 
we  have  it  also,  or  a  nearly  kindred  form,  in  the  Book  of  Leinster 
proper  name  For^^  (330^),  Forg  {^^^'^\  genitive  P/t^i/g- (351''),  and 
{Messin)  Fu'irc  (325^),  though  the  commoner  forms  are  of  other 
declensions.^  Lastly,  besides  giving  as  derivatives  from  Vergiacus  the 
place-name  Vergy  in  the  Cote-d'Or,  Le  Vergy  in  the  Haute-Saone, 
Veria  in  the  Jura,  and  treating  Vergiacus  as  derived  from  a  man's 
name  Vergius,  Celtic  Ve7'gios,  Holder  quotes  Verg-  from  two  inscrip- 
tions occurring  at  Gurina  in  Carinthia,  and  one  at  Grenoble  (C.I.  L., 
III.  12014.  576,  XII.  2282).  Whether  the  name  in  full  was  Vergm, 
Vergius,  or  some  other  derivative,  it  is  now  impossible  to  decide  ;  but 
presumably  it  was  related  to  our  Vergalai. 

There  remains  the  question  of  the  meaning  of  the  ending  dlo-s,  -old 
in  Celtic  epigraphy.  I  infer  that  the  adjectives  with  that  ending  are 
to  be  construed  here  like  those  in  -io-s,  -id,  as  Riumanio-s  which 
might  be  literally  rendered  '  Riumanian '  or  '  related  to  somebody 
called  Riumanos  \  whence  Biumanios  is  derived,  the  special  relation  in 
this  kind  of  context  being  that  of  son  to  father  {Celtic  Inscr.  of 
France  and  Italy,  xxiv).  Similarly  leyoiiapos  OvtWoveos  would  be 
Segomaros  the  Willonian,  meaning  '  Segomar  son  of  Willonos ' 
(ib.  vi).  I  am  now  disposed  to  think  that  the  termination  -eo-s  is  a 
reduced  form  of  -aio-s :  instances  have  been  collected  by  Holder, 
I.  72,  and  III.  541.  In  the  same  light  as  -eo-s  may  perhaps  also  be 
treated  the  ending  -dco-s,  so  that  Ka/3tpos  ^  Oytz;8ta/cos  would  mean 

^  Such  as  '  Fuirg  a  quo  Hui  Fargga '  (3230  implying  an  early  Forgi-s,  genitive 
Forgi-as  of  which  we  seem  to  have  a  later  trace  in  Hid  Forca  (311'=)  ;  but  the  most 
common  spelling  of  the  genitive  in  the  pedigrees  in  that  MS.  appears  to  be  Forgo 
(3278,  330*,  331C3,  33511^  347g^  348e,  349c)  with  an  early  form  Vorgos  (that  is 
Vorgos)  in  Ogam  on  a  stone  at  Dunloe  Castle,  in  Kerry.  This  suggests  the  u 
declension  with  nominative  Vorgu-s,  genitive  Vorgos,  with  vorg  for  earlier  verg  : 
compare  *Ver-tigemio-s  makmg  in  Irish  Ogam  inscriptions  Vortigem-,  Vorrtigern-, 
and  see  Thumeysen's  Handhuch,  p.  465.  A  nominative  Fergg  in  the  Book  of 
Leinster  (366'*)  is  probably  a  blunder  rather  than  a  survival  of  the  original  stem 
with  e.  The  treatment  of  the  name  in  the  Bodleian  MS.  Rawlinson  B.  502  is 
characterized  by  the  use  of  Forggo  (Forggu,  Forgco)  as  both  genitive  and  nomina- 
tive :  see  Kuno  Meyer's  Index  to  the  same,  p.  30.  On  the  question  of  variant 
declensions  see  Buccos  in  the  Berlin  Corpus,  vol.  XIII,  part  iii,  p.  119,  and  the 
note  on  it  in  my  Celtic  Inscriptions  of  Gaul,  p.  19. 

^  In  the  lievue  Celtique,  XXX.  367,  Professor  Loth,  in  a  kindly  notice  of  my 


8         PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

'  Cabiros  the  Windian ',  that  is  Cabiros  son  of  Windios  (Celtic  Inscr. 
of  Gaul,  no.  3,  p.  6).  Thus  we  ah'eady  have  adjectives  of  two  or  three 
different  endings,  employed  to  form  patronymics  or  family  names,  and 
I  am  persuaded  that  adjectives  formed  with  the  termination  -alo-s, 
-aid,  were  employed  in  that  way  by  the  Celts  of  the  neighbourhood  of 
Lugano.  The  inscription  in  question  Sldnidi  Verkdldi  pala  would 
therefore  mean  'For  Slania  daughter  of  Vergos  a  burial  place'. 
Whether  this  interpretation  is  the  correct  one  or  not  must  depend 
on  the  degree  of  success  with  which  the  same  key  can  be  used  in  the 
other  cases  in  point.^ 

(2)  The  other  inscription  on  the  Davesco  stone  reads  from  right  to 
left  like  the  one  already  discussed  :  it  is  close  and  parallel  to  it  in 
position,  and  corresponds  to  it  in  syntax,  the  only  difference  being 
that  it  is  in  the  masculine  gender,  as  follows : — 

A>lA1ilVv!AlXoVMilVI^IX 

']  hat  is  Tisiui  Pivotialui  pala,  which  would  mean,  being  translated 
like  the  other  line,  'For  Tisios  Pivotialos  a  burial  place'.  But  the 
names  call  for  a  remark  or  two  on  the  value  of  their  spelling.  In 
the  first  place  it  is  not  certain  whether  we  should  regard  the  first 
name  as  Tisios  or  Disios  :  in  favour  of  the  former  should  be  men- 
tioned that  there  appears  to  have  been  such  a  Celtic  name,  which  is 
found  spelt  Tissio,  as  a  Latin  dative  in  an  inscription  from  the 
neighbourhood  of  Nimes  (C.I.L.,  XII.  4145),  to  which  Holder  adds 
Tis . . .  from  Padua  (C.  /.  L.,  V.  2914),  Tiseno  from  Poitiers  (C.  /.  L., 
XIII.  10017.  846),  Tisidcus  'Thissy  '  in  the  dep.  of  the  Yonne,  where 
he  also  finds  a  place-name  Tissey,  implying  Tissidcus,  probably  from 
a  personal  name  Tissios, 

It  has  been  surmised  that  the  other  name  written  Pivotialui  stands 
for  Bivotidlui  (Danielsson,  p.  16),  the  dative  of  Bivotidlo-s,  that  is  '  son 
of  Bivotio-s\  which  we  have  in  Med.  Irish  as  the  ordinary  adjective 
M'oda  '  energetic,  lively ' ;  see  Windisch's  Tain,  pp.  7,  29G.  We 
have  possibly  a  form  of  the  same  adjective  in  Bede,  the  name  of  a  Pict 
who  was  Grand  Steward  of  Buchan,  in  the  Book  of  Deir  (Stokes's 

Celtic  Inscnptions  of  Gaul,  writes^  among  other  criticisms,  that  he  regards  it 
improbable  that  Ka/3ipos  is  a  borrowed  name  in  our  inscriptions.  I  am  happy  to 
accept  that  view  as  deciding  the  doubts  which  I  liad  on  the  point. 

^  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  terminations  here  in  question  have  their  own 
shades  of  meaning  and  cannot  always  be  pressed  to  fit  a  patronymic  interpreta- 
tion ;  as  a  rule  they  must  be  inunediately  preceded  by  a  man  or  woman's  name 
in  an  epitaph.  Vice  versa  in  such  a  position  almost  any  atljectival  termination 
of  a  wide  application  would  seem  to  require  to  be  interpreted  iu  the  patronymic 
sense. 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIFITONS   OF  CISxlLPINE  GAUL    9 

Goidelica,  p.  108).  Bivotios  seems  derived  from  bivoto-,  which  prob- 
ably meant  '  life  \  and  is  to  be  referred  to  biuo-  *  c^uick,  living ',  Lish 
beo,  Welsh  bT/zv,  Latin  v'tvus,  viva,  v'tvum.  This  bivoto-  seems  to 
equate  with  the  Greek  /3toro-?  '  life,  sustenance  "■,  O.  Bulgarian 
zivotu  '  life  ' :  compare  Lithuanian  gijvata  '  life  \  On  the  other  hand 
Irish  beotJiu  'life',  genitive  bethotli  (Stokes's  Celtic  Declension,  p.  26), 
and  bethad  (Thurneysen's  Handbuch,  p.  122),  Welsh  byicyd^  'life', 
come  nearer  to  the  Greek  /StoVr/s,  genitive  ^loti-jtos,  of  the  same  mean- 
ing. In  any  case  "we  appear  to  have  bivoto-  in  the  bead  of  such  Irish 
names  as  Beothin  (Bk.  of  Leinster,  365")  and  the  genitives  Beodain, 
Beodan  (ib.  348^  368^,  369^),  Beodgiia  (ib.  352'),  and  Beadri  (ib. 
369'').  With  Celtic  names  from  heo,  byw,  to  which  may  be  added 
such  instances  from  the  Continent  as  Holder's  Biuvo{n)  (read  Bivvo{n) 
or  Biuuo{n)),  feminine  Bivonia,hoth.  from  Brescia  or  its  vicinity  (C.I.L., 
V.  4136,  4487)  and  Bivito{n)  or  Bivitonus  from  Langres,  may  be 
compared  the  Latin  Vitalis,  Vitalianus,  and  Vitalinus^^  from  vita  '  life '. 
It  remains  to  add  some  further  notes  on  the  dative  masculine 
singular  ending  in  -ui :  comparison  shows  it  to  have  been  originally  -^l^ 
of  the  same  formation  as  the  Greek  -ml  in  which  the  t  ceased  to  be 
sounded  though  retained  in  the  spelling  -i2t  or  -w :  in  some  of  the 
dialects  such  as  Boeotian  it  was  ot,  parallel  with  at  for  a.  In  Latin 
the  usual  ending  was  o,  but  old  Latin  shows  an  occasional  oi  as 
in  Numasioi  and  populoi,  Faliscan  Titoi  and  Zextoi,  while  Oscan 
preserved  Abellanid  (Brugmann's  Grundriss,  11.^  II.  i.  168,  282-5). 
In  Gaulish  the  dative  of  this  declension  has  usually  lost  its  final  i 
leaving  simply  -o  or  -?/ ;  there  is  evidence  of  the  former  being  -o,  and 
presumably  the  -u  was  -u  likewise.     As  instances  may  be  mentioned 

Tl..  ANNCO,  ANEVNn,  ANEVNICND,  OCLICNO 

{Celtic  Inscr.  of  Gaul,  pp.  47,  49,  55,  photo.  9^).  In  other  instances, 
to  wit,  in  letters  exclusively  Latin,  we  have  the  final  of  the  dative 
written  V,  that  is  -u,  as  in  AUsanu  {Celtic  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy, 
no.  iii.  D.  10).  Anvalonnacu  (ib.  no.  v,  p.  12).      But  even  in  Gaul 

1  poiut  in  Fick's  II.  p.  165^  waut  revising  :  thus  AVelsli  bywyd 
uivaleiit  of  Irish  hiad  '  food  ' ,  but  the  ^Velsh  hwyd  '  food  ',  which 
"■^  emitted      It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  blad  and  hwyd  have 

ar  there  at  all.       Under  Muos  '  life '  should  appear  the  AVelsh 
and  Irish  it  biu  '  m  thy  life '  has  its  equivalent  in  the  Welsh  '  yn 
for  an  older  ithfyw. 

Lsed  apparently  by  the  De'ssi  to  render  their  heo  names,  and 
it  as  the  barony  of  Corkaguiny  in  Kerry,  where  an  Ogam  was 
;  ago  reading  Vitulin.  See  the  Cymmrodor,  XXI.  48-50,  and 
ions  (if  Gaul,  p.  65. 


10       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

there  occur  a  few  instances  with  the  i  intact  making  the  ending  -ovi 
as  in  Tpaa-eXovL  (if  that  be  the  right  reading  and  not  VpaaeXov)  and 
AaiJLi.  Eti^ovt,  Celtic  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy^  no.  iii,  p.  29  ;  no.  xviii, 
p.  36).  Probably  the  suggested  reading Mapeooit  should  be  corrected 
into  Mapeovi  from  a  nominative  Mapeo-?  for  Latin  Marius  (ib.  x, 
p.  21  :  compare  Celtic  Inscr.  of  Gaul,  p.  3).  To  these  I  failed  to  do 
justice  until  after  becoming  familiar  with  others  which  yielded  readings 
admitting  of  no  doubt,  such  as  BaKavbovi  MaKKapLovi,  that  is  Balaudui 
Maccariui  '  to  Balaudos  son  of  Maccarios ',  not  Maccarivos  which  is 
probably  to  be  cancelled  (ib.  p.  5) ;  the  man's  name  ending  in  ... . 
(Tovi  is  probably  to  be  treated  as  representing  the  ....  s-ui  (ib.  p.  16) 
of  some  such  name  as  khpeaaovi.  Here  also  should  be  classed  one  of  the 
spellings  in  the  double  inscription  beginning  with  khy^vovi  8eSe  '  gave 
to  Adgen(n)os\  The  other  version  has  Ahy^voov  8[e8el  'gave  to 
Adgen(n)us'  (ib.  p.  18).^  The  longest  inscription  in  Greek  letters  at 
Alesia  makes  -oov  into  -cov  in  the  dative  case  BtpaKorwv  and  Ko/3pt- 
TovXciiv.  In  a  word  the  dative  in  -ovi  =  -ui  implied  a  nominative  in 
-o-s,  of  the  o  declension,  and  that  in  oov  (or  cov)  a  nominative  in 
-ouy  =  lis,  of  the  It  declension. 

A  word  must  now  be  said  as  to  the  way  in  which  the  Lepontine 
inscriptions  have  been  treated  by  philologists.  Dr.  Carl  Pauli  takes 
the  first  place,  and  his  views  may  be  consulted  in  his  Altttalische 
Forschungen,  Volume  I,  '  Die  Inschriften  nordetruskischen  Alphabets,' 
published  at  Leipsic  in  1885,  in  which  (pp.  70  &  seq.)  he  regards  the 
forms  in  -iii  (from  -oi)  and  -ai  as  genitives  and  the  language  as  Celtic. 
Later,  in  the  Beilage  ziir  Allgemeinen  Zeitung  for  1900,  no.  157,  which 
I  have  not  seen,  he  seems  to  have  changed  his  view  on  the  latter 
point,  and  to  have  referred  the  Lepontine  inscriptions  to  a  Ligurian 
origin ;  for  in  the  meantime  M.  d'Arbois  de  Jubainville  had  under- 
taken to  prove  the  language  of  the  Ligurians  to  have  been  Indo- 
European  :  see  the  second  book  of  the  second  edition  of  his  Premiers 
Habitants  de  VEnrope.  Moreover,  between  1890  and  1894,  the  Italian 
archaeologist  Enrico  Bianchetti  carried  out  his  numerous  and  impor- 
tant excavations  at  St.  Bernardo  and  In  Persona,  both  near  Ornavasso 
at  the  southern  end  of  the  Valle  d'Ossola,  and  wrote  his  account  of 
the  finds,  which  was  published  after  his  death  by  his  friend  Professor 
Ermanno  Ferrero  at  Turin  in  1895,  with  the  title  1  Sepolcreti  di 
Ornavasso,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Societd  di  Archcolog'ta  e  Belle 

'  On  p.  8  of  the  C.  Inscr.  of  Gaul  we  have  the  epitaph  Mtrifo-i  •  Mtrif  •  MayovTi  • 
OvvaKovt  which  I  am  now  inclined  to  render  '  To  Mitiesis,  Mitis  offsprinj;^  of 
Magutios  and  Onna  (erected  it) '.  In  any  case  I  treat  kovi  as  cui,  an  equivalent 
of  Latin  -que  '  and  '. 


THE    CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALriNE   GAUL    11 

Arti  per  la  Provincia  di  Torino.  In  the  year  1895-6  the  Italian 
savant,  Dr.  Elia  Lattes,  discussed  the  Ornavasso  inscriptions  in 
vol.  XXXI,  pp.  102-8 ;  and  some  ten  years  later  he  contributed  an 
article  'Di  un'  Iscrizione  anteromana  trovata  a  Carcegna  sul  Lago 
d'Orta'  to  the  Atti  della  R.  Accadeima  di  Scienze  di  Torino^  XXXIX. 
(1904)  p.  449  &  seq.  These  scholars  held  the  view  that  the  names 
ending  in  -ui  and  -ai  were  genitives,  and  this  supposition  was  accepted 
by  Prof.  Paul  Kretschmer,  in  an  important  paper  contributed  by  him 
under  the  title,  'Die  Inschriften  von  Ornavasso  und  die  ligurische 
Sprache',  to  Kuhn"s  Zeitschrift,  vol.  XXXVTII,  for  the  year  1905.  He 
came  to  the  logical  conclusion  that  as  the  genitive  singular  of  the  o 
declension  hitherto  known  in  Old  Celtic,  ended  in  i  as  in  Latin, 
a  genitive  in  tii  must  imply  a  non-Celtic  language,  which  seemed  to 
him  to  have  been  Ligurian.  He  discusses  Ligurian  and  the  people 
"who  spoke  Ligurian,  he  examines  d'Arbois  de  Jubainville's  theory  and 
confirms  it :  he  makes  valuable  suggestions  of  his  own.  liastly. 
Prof.  Gustav  Herbig  in  the  Zurich  Anzeiger  fiir  schiceizerische  Alter- 
tiimskunde,  1905-6,  p.  187  &  seq.,  made  advances  in  the  study  of 
the  question,  but  he  adhered  with  certain  reservations  to  Pauli's  point 
of  view.  He  returned  to  the  subject  in  the  Indog.  Forschungen^ 
XXVni  (1911),  Beiblatt,  pp.  23-6. 

Then  came  Professor  Herman  Hirt,  who  in  his  Indogermanen 
(Strassburg,  1905,  1907)  insisted  on  the  inadmissible  nature  of  the 
genitive  theory,  and  gave  the  whole  question  its  proper  perspective  by 
explaining  the  disputed  forms  as  datives  (II.  564),  at  the  same  time 
that  he  unavoidably  made  the  language  Celtic :  compare  his  general 
views  as  to  the  Ligurians,  whom  he  regards  as  non-Indo-European 
(I.  43-9).  Next  may  be  mentioned  Thurneysen's  notes  in  his  Hatid- 
biich,  I.  174,  180:  they  betray  no  objection  to  the  notion  of  datives 
in  -ui  (derived  from  -oi)  and  in  -di,  of  which  the  author  gives  as  instance 
the  Irish  7nndi  'to  a  woman'.  His  difficulty  was  the  evidence 
for  the  reading  of  -ui  and  -ai  in  the  inscriptions  then  known  to  him  as 
Celtic.  This  is  now  removed  by  such  undoubted  forms  as  Eti^out, 
BakavbovL,  and  },laKKainovi,  cited  above.  Lastly,  we  have  Danielsson's 
paper  already  mentioned,  on  the  Venetic  and  Lepontic  Inscriptions,^ 
to  which  I  owe  most  of  my  bibliographical  information.  He  opens 
his  review  of  the  state  of  the  question  by  calling  attention  to  certain 
dative  instances  in  Venetic,  such  as  ontei,  appioi,  sselboi,  and  others, 
previously  discussed  in  his  pages  (8-11,  14).  He  suggests  some 
corrections  (pp.  18, 19)  required  in  Herbig's  account  of  the  inscription 

^  It  was  printed  at  Upsala  in  1909^  and  is  sold  there  for  the  Academy,  by 
C.  J.  I^iudstrom,  and  at  Leipsic  by  Otto  Harrassowitz. 


12       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

of  Carcegna  on  Lago  d'Orta.  This  will  be  mentioned  presently, 
together  with  some  of  the  details  noticed  by  Danielsson  in  the  course 
of  observations  intended  to  distinguish  from  one  another  the  datives 
and  genitives  of  the  masculine  singular,  and  to  demonstrate  the 
language  in  point  to  have  been  Celtic. 

2.  ViGANELLO,  about  half  a  mile  to  the  north  of  Lugano.  My 
daughter  and  I  spent  the  17th  of  April  crossing  from  Stresa  to 
Lugano,  by  steamer  across  Lake  Maggiore,  then  by  train  to  the  Lake 
of  Lugano,  which  we  crossed  on  board  another  steamer  and  landed  in 
the  lower  town  of  Lugano.  We  had  arranged  to  stay  at  the  Hotel 
S.  Gothard  Terminus,  Avhich  is  on  the  hill-side  near  the  railway 
station.  That  was  a  mistake :  it  would  have  been  more  convenient 
to  have  had  quarters  at  one  of  the  hotels  down  near  the  lake.  But 
we  could  see  the  town  below  us  ;  and  among  other  places  outside  the 
campanile  of  Viganello  was  pointed  out  to  us,  and  next  day  I  went 
there  most  of  the  way  by  electric  tram,  I  did  not  feel  sanguine  as 
to  finding  the  inscription  I  wanted  to  see,  as  my  letters  of  inquiry  to 
the  parish  priest.  Father  Pometta,  had  elicited  the  fact  that  the  little 
oratory  of  S.  Siro,  where  it  should  be,  had  been  allowed  to  fall  into 
ruins.  I  had  no  information  where  the  little  oratory  might  be,  but 
a  naiTOw  pebbly  lane  leading  uphill  towards  the  campanile  guided 
me  to  a  doorless,  roofless  little  building  on  the  left.  In  spite  of 
the  ordure  about  the  entrance  there  was  no  mistaking  the  fact  that 
the  little  building  had  been  a  place  of  worship,  as  witnessed  by  the 
frescoes  of  forlorn  saints,  holy  water  places  run  dry,  and  the  remains 
of  the  altar.  I  began  looking  for  the  inscription,  but  there  was  no 
stone  of  any  size  visible  there  except  where  the  altar  had  been,  or 
where  the  threshold  still  lay  fixed.  I  went  aw^ay  to  call  on  Father 
Pometta,  who  returned  with  me  to  renew  the  search  ;  but  it  all  proved 
in  vain.  He  had  not  long  been  in  the  parish  and  did  not  know  the 
oratory  before  the  roof  had  fallen  in.  We  left  the  place  in  dis- 
appointment, fearing  that  the  inscription  had  been  lost.  The  only 
chance  of  its  being  there  was  that  it  was  covered  by  the  rubbish 
which  made  it  impossible  to  get  at  the  floor.  I  have  since  written 
to  the  Cav.  Giussani,  who  is  certain  that  he  can  find  the  stone  as  he 
knows  where  to  look  for  it  beneath  the  rubbish.  He  has  promised 
to  make  the  search  when  the  snow  is  gone,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  stone,  when  found  again,  will  be  removed  to  the  Cantonal  Museum 
at  Lugano. 

According  to  Pauli,  no.  12,  the  inscription  reads  from  right  to  left : 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    13 

That  is  Sunalei  Main,  for  he  points  the  *,  ^i,  and  o  as  of  doubtful 
reading  :  in  fact,  of  the  O  only  a  bit  remains.  Those  who  pubhshed 
the  inscription  before  him  had  copied  it  as  sunvlei  •  maJc-^  but  he 
was  very  decided  in  reading  -alei  for  what  they  made  into  -vlei,  and 
he  remarks  that  Fabretti's  draAving  of  a  squeeze  by  Dr.  Balestra  showed 
the  first  half  of  the  O  at  the  end.  Giussani  in  his  Tesserete  paper  ^ 
agrees  with  Pauli,  remarking  only  that  the  writing  is  now  doulrtful, 
and  giving  the  /  on  the  strength  of  the  reading  of  Pauli  and  other 
readers  of  the  inscription  before  his  day.  Giussani  (p.  22)  gives  the 
dimensions  of  the  stone  as  1*05  metre  by  0"32  and  the  height  of  the 
letters  as  15  centimetres. 

The  reading  which  I  am  inclined  to  suggest  of  the  inscription  in 
its  original  state  is  Sunalei  Malconi  Pala  '  a  burial  place  for  Sunalis 
(son)  of  Maconios '.  I  cannot  follow  Holder  in  treating  Sunalei  as  if 
it  were  Sunalai :  I  take  it  to  be  the  dative  of  Sunalis,  the  name  of 
the  man  or  woman  commemorated,  rather  than  that  of  his  or  her  family. 
He  quotes  a  number  of  apparently  kindred  forms,  Sunici  or  Sunuci, 
a  name  of  neighbours  of  the  Ubii,  Su7iicius,  Sunilena,  fern.,  Sunna, 
mas.,  Sunnacius,  Sunnarius,  Sunnovira,  fem.,  Sunua,  fem.,  Siinutius, 
Sunutia,  together  with  others  beginning  with  son-.  The  nearest  in 
point  of  formation  here  seems  to  be  Sunil-end,  suggestive  of  a  mascu- 
line Sunil-eno-s :  compare  such  Irish  names  as  Baith-en-e,  Do7-bb-en-e, 
Ern-en-e  (Latinized  as  Ferreolus  in  Reeves's  Adamnan's  Life  of 
Columba,  p.  237)  and  without  the  final  ^  (=  ios)  Brlnd-ln^  one  of  the 
various  forms  of  St.  Brendd.n's  name.  Irish  also  throws  light  on  the 
probable  etymon  of  the  names  beginning  with  sun-,  which  we  have 
in  Stokes's  article  on  sunno-  '  shining,  bright ' ;  this  he  gives  on  the 
strength  of  Irish  for-sunnud.  '  enlightenment,  illumination  ^  and  of 
kindred  words  in  that  language  :  see  Fick  II.  306.  For  the  other  name 
I  have  suggested  a  genitive  Maconi  with  the  word  for  son  or  daughter 
omitted  as  usual.     Holder  cites  a  Latin  inscription  with  the  words 

1  The  paper  was  published  in  1902  in  the  Rivista  archeologica  della  Provincia  e 
antica  Diocesi  di  Como,  under  the  title  '  L'lscrizione  Nord-Etrusca  di  Tesserete 
e  le  altre  Iscrizioni  Pre-Romane  del  nostro  Territorio  '.  At  the  time  of  my  visit 
I  had  unfortunately  not  seen  this  article. 

^  Occasionally  we  have  the  diminutive  suffix  -en  represented  in  Welsh,  namely, 
by  -wyn,  as  in  iyi-chwyn  '  a  little  iwrch  or  roebuck ',  morwyn  '  a  maid,  a  girl ' , 
with  the  plural  morynion  from  a  slightly  different  stem,  and  guiannuin,  Med. 
Welsh  gwaeann6yn  (Skene's  Four  anc.  Books  of  Wales,  II.  308),  Mod.  Welsh 
gwunnwyn,  and  gwinnwyn,  mas.,  Cornish  guaintoin  'the  spring  of  the  year', 
postulating  a  Protoceltic  form  vesant-eno-s  :  compare  Latin  vet'  (  =  vesr)  and 
Sanskrit  m.sa7jfd  '  spring'.  In  point  of  derivation  the  French  sokil  supplies  a 
parallel  as  it  presupposes  a  Latin  soliculus  :  compare  also  such  German  words  as 
IIor)nuHj  and  Fruhling. 


14       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH    ACADEMY 

*  Tertia  Dometia  Maconi  filia ' :  it  comes  from  Valperga,  north-east  of 
Turin,  near  the  river  Orgo,  which  falls  into  the  Po  at  Chivasso.  Here 
Maconi  is  possibly  the  genitive  of  Maconius ;  at  any  rate  both 
Macomus  and  Maconia  occur  elsewhere,  and  Holder  cites  also 
Macconus.  The  only  alternative  to  Maconi  of  either  origin,  which 
I  can  suggest,  is  an  adjective  in  the  dative  Macondlui  or  Maconalai 
according  as  Sunalei  was  a  man's  or  a  Avoman's  name.  The  other 
conjecture  seems  preferable. 

3.  Tesserete  in  the  Valle  Capriasca,  to  the  north  of  Lugano.  A 
slab  of  stone,  now  in  the  Lugano  Museum,  was  discovered  at  Tesserete 
in  the  year  1900,  with  writing  on  both  sides  of  it  consisting  of  three 
inscriptions.  Two  of  them,  on  what  I  may  call  the  first  face,  com- 
memorate persons  who  would  seem  to  have  been  a  man  and  his  wife.  The 
remaining  one  on  the  second  face  was  a  man's.  The  dimensions  given 
by  Giussani  in  his  Tesserete  paper  are  1  metre  by  0-70  by  0-13, 
and  the  height  of  the  letters  he  estimates  as  15  centimetres.  They 
are  enclosed  between  two  parallel  lines  in  each  case.  The  lines 
forming  the  boundaries  of  the  letters  of  the  woman's  epitaph  meet  at 
the  top  to  form  a  rude  sort  of  head  and  face,  with  the  left  eye  indi- 
cated by  a  point :  the  right  one  I  could  not  trace.  Where  the  hus- 
band's head  should  be,  the  stone  is  broken  off ;  see  Giussani's  sketches 
of  these  inscriptions. 

(1)  The  feminine  inscription  reads  from  right  to  left : — 

•A^JA-lilAA 

That  is  Aai  pala,  which  means  '  For  Aa  a  burial  place '.  The  lettei's 
of  this  line  slope,  and  some  of  them  have  gentle  curves  instead  of 
what  should  otherwise  have  been  vertical  straight  lines.  A  a  seems  a 
somewhat  peculiar  name,  but  possibly  a  soft  consonant  has  been  elided, 
such  as  a  spirant  g,  between  the  vowels,  and  the  name  represents  some 
such  form  as  Ago,  from  a  stem  nearly  related  to  that  of  Irish  ag, 
genitive  aga  '  conflict,  battle ' :  the  women  of  the  ancient  Irish  took 
a  regular  part  in  war.  The  wife  is  here  given  no  family  name,  which 
is  the  case  also  with  the  two  men  commemorated. 

(2)  The  husband's  epitaph  runs  parallel  with  the  wife's,  and 
reads : — 

A>i^'1:IVIXo 

The  verticals  of  these  letters  are  lines  which  do  not  palpably 
slope  :  they  can  hardly  have  been  cut  by  the  same  hand  as  the  wife's 
epitaph.  Giussani  gives  the  punctuation  as  three  points,  but  I 
failed  to  detect  the  middle  one.    The  reading  makes  Otiui  Pala — '  For 


THE   CELTIC  INSCRIPTIONS    OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    15 

Otios  a  burial  place  \  ^Vhether  we  should  treat  the  name  involved  as 
having  initial  ^  or  o  is  uncertain,  but  the  latter  would  lend  itself  to  the 
comparison  of  Otios  with  the  Irish  iiath  '  fear,  horror  \  In  that  case 
Otios  would  be  an  adjectival  formation  derived  from  oto-y  and  might 
be  explained  as  '  formidable,  inspiring  fear  \  as  in  the  Irish  Uathach 
'  fearful,  to  be  dreaded  ',  and  Uathmor  '  greatly  to  be  feared  \  The 
stem  oto-  here  assumed  would  probably  admit  of  being  identified  with 
the  otu  of  the  genitive  of  Otu-aneunus  in  the  Latin  inscription  on  the 
triumphal  arch  at  Saintes  in  Western  Gaul,  for  Avhich  see  the  Berlin 
Corpus,  vol.  XIII,  1036  ;  also  probably  with  the  uto  of  the  UtonoiiL 
of  the  Andergia  stone,  which  is  to  be  discussed  later. 

(3)  The  inscription  on  the  other  face  of  the  stone  is  partly  defective 
at  both  the  beginning  and  the  end.  As  it  stands  it  begins  with  an 
Q  with  its  perpendicular  nearly  all  gone,  and  except  its  first  limb 
the  last  letter  o?  pala  is  now  scarcely  traceable.  The  last  joint  of  the 
M  is  also  a  little  damaged ;  nevertheless  the  whole  reads  without  any 
serious  doubt  from  right  to  left  like  the  other  two  lines  : — 

AJAHlv^oXq 

That  is  in  Roman  letters  .  .  .  rkomui  pala^  where,  be  it  noticed, 
a  letter  or  two  are  gone  at  the  beginning:  it  probably  wants 
a  vowel.  On  trying  to  complete  the  name  we  arrive  at  the 
conclusion  that  a  vowel  only  will  not  avail.  But  taking  Komui 
alone  we  see  that  we  have  here  the  dative  of  Como-s,  Comus,  Comux 
(fem.  Coma),  from  which  is  derived  the  name  which  comes  down  in 
the  manuscripts  of  Caesar's  Commentaries  as  Commms,  while  Tin- 
commitis  was  the  name  of  one  of  his  sons,  on  British  coins  Commios 
and  Tincommios,  probably  contracted  from  Tinco-commios  (C  Inscr. 
of  Gaul,  p.  27),  also  Comiacus,  the  existence  of  which  is  proved  by 
such  place-names  as  Comiac  and  Conge  or  Congy:  see  Holder's  details. 
A  variety  of  Irish  derivative  names  of  this  stock  occur  in  the  Book  of 
Leinster  pedigrees,  such  as  Comman,  Cummin,  Commine,  Cummene; 
and  we  seem  to  have  the  etymon  in  the  form  Stokes  gives  as  kombo- 
whence  he  derives  Irish  comm  (coimm)  'clothing,  shelter'.  In  that 
case  Commios  may  have  meant  one  who  affords  shelter,  a  protector  or 
guardian,  and  Tincommios  '  protector  of  the  thing  or  court '.  Stokes 
connects  his  kombo-  with  the  Greek  KOfilBos  '  a  roll,  band  or  girth  ' : 
compare  the  Hesychian  KOjx^uiiia  '  that  which  is  girded,  a  robe  '.  This 
would  suggest  another  interpretation  of  the  name  Commios,  to  wit, 
that  of  '  one  who  is  arrayed  in  fine  raiment '.  But  neither  interpreta- 
tion may  have  been  the  true  one :  we  can  only  form  a  conjecture. 
Now  if  we  have  a  dative  in  Komui  or  any  complete  name,  we  cannot 


16       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

well  be  mistaken  as  to  the  preceding  r :  it  is  the  remains  of  the  prefix 
vei'  as  in  Ver-cassivellaunos,  Ver-cingetorix  and  the  like.  In  the 
present  case  the  whole  name  \vas  probably  Ver-comui,  the  dative  of 
Ver-comos,  better  Ver-commos. 

4.  Maeoggia  is  a  little  place  on  the  south-eastern  shore  of  the 
Lake  of  Lugano,  at  the  foot  of  Monte  Generoso.  There,  in  a  heap 
of  stones  thrown  away  on  the  brink  of  the  water,  was  found  in  1904 
a  piece  of  sandstone  bearing  an  ancient  inscription  enclosed  by  grooves 
forming  a  roughly  drawn  oblong  boundary,  which  the  extremes  of  the 
lettering  touch  at  top  and  bottom.  The  stone  measures  0"^  70  by 
0™  47  by  0™  14,  and,  thanks  to  Giussani,  it  is  now  in  the  Cantonal 
Museum  at  Lugano,  where  I  saw  it  last  April. 

I  take  these  details  from  his  account  of  the  stone  which  he  pub- 
lished, with  a  photograph,  in  1907  in  the  Como  Rivista.  He  suggests 
two  readings  OOi  I  A?  that  is  Aipro,  and  0C3  I  A»  that  is  Aiero. 
He  gives  the  preference  to  the  former,  and  compares  it  with  the 
aipi'a-upz  of  an  inscription  on  an  Etruscan  urn  in  the  Bucelli  Museum 
at  Montepulciano.  On  the  other  hand  I  feel  forced  to  prefer  the 
reading  Aiero,  either  for  an  older  nominative  Aiero-s  or  an  older  dative 
Aieroi.  Assuming  this  reading  to  be  correct,  the  composition  of  the 
name  may  possibly  have  been  aies-TO-s  with  the  Celtic  affix  -ro-  of 
which  Holder  has  collected  instances.  The  name  would  mean  '  of  the 
nature  of  metal,  like  metal ' ;  that  is  to  say,  like  the  chief  metal  in 
use  w  hen  the  name  was  formed,  whether  bronze  or  iron ;  for  when 
aies-  did  not  mean  metal  or  ore  generally,  it  is  not  certain  which 
metal  was  meant  by  the  Aryan  word  postulated.  Thus  the  name 
Aie7'0-  and  its  etymon  may  be  taken  as  a  sort  of  parallel  to  the  Latin 
adjective  aeiitcs,  ahenus  '  of  copper  or  bronze,  firm  or  invincible,  hard 
and  inexorable ',  and  to  its  etymon  aes,  aeris.  On  aies-  see  Brugmann's 
Grundnss,  IP.  I.  519. 

5.  (1)  S.  PiETRO  Di  Stabbio,  a  village  to  the  west  of  Mendrisio, 
which  is  south  of  the  Lake  of  Lugano.  There,  in  1864,  was  found  a 
stone  reading  from  right  to  left  in  the  direction  away  from  the  head, 
which  is  broad  in  the  face  and  marked  by  two  dots  indicating  the 
eyes.  The  lines  enclosing  the  inscription  and  ending  in  the  broad 
face  are  not  straight  grooves  but  punched  outlines,  apparently  of  a 
rather  tight  dress  without  any  suggestion  of  arms  or  hands,  while 
nearly  opposite  the  perpendicular  of  the  last  ^  there  are  short  grooves 
pointing  outwards  on  both  sides,  which  may  have  been  intended  to 
indicate  the  points  of  the  figure's  feet.  It  is  Pauli's  no.  16,  and  it  is 
given  also  in  Giussani's  Tesserete,  [).  18,  where  the  dimensions  are 
mentioned  as  1"^  50  by  0'"  50.      I   saw  it  in  tlie  museum  ut  Chur, 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE  GAUL    17 

and  Dr.  Jecklin's  photograph  numbered  I,  5  (1)  Stabbio,  should  be 
consulted,  let  me  say,  for  more  reasons  than  one,  as  the  following 
remarks  will  serve  to  show. 
The  reading  seems  to  be  : — 

^ot1olo>:V>V^Ii1 

That  is  Minuhi  Koiywneos.  Here  we  have  the  O  made  small  and  also 
the  3,  for  the  o  3  are  placed  beneath  the  arm  of  the  "A  preceding  them  ; 
similarly,  the  second  O  is  placed  beneath  the  outstretching  parts  of 
the  ^.  This  last  means  w,  and  is  perhaps  derived  from  the  old  ***A 
(  =  m)  of  five  joints,  while  the  first  m  in  the  same  line  is  so  crude  that 
I  cannot  analyse  it  with  certainty ;  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  two 
were  meant  for  m.  Traces  of  the  same  sort  of  m  occur  also  in  one 
of  the  Giubiasco  graffiti,  which  will  come  under  notice  later.  Lastly, 
the  photograph  will  be  found  to  establish  the  presence  of  a  small  3 
{=  e)  underneath  the  branch  of  the  last  ^  {=  n).  This  is  left  out 
in  Pauli's  reading,  which  accordingly  has  led  everybody  to  think 
this  patronymic  a  different  word  from  the  first  of  the  vocables  in  the 
next  epitaph,  which  comes  from  the  same  place. 

As  to  the  name  MinicJvu,  it  happens  that  a  remarkable  monument 
found  at  Turin  mentions  a  person  called  T.  Minuconius  Alexander 
(C.  /.  L.,  V.  6953),  where  Minuconkis  analyses  itself  into  Minu-coniuSy 
which  may  have  meant  Minuconian  in  the  probable  sense  of  '  son  of 
Minucu\  that  is  Mimi-cu.  For  we  have  here  cu,  with  the  oblique- 
case  stem  €071-  yielding  in  the  genitive,  for  instance,  *con-os,  in  Irish 
Ogam  C07ias  or  cunas,  as  in  Glasiconas  from  Gortatlea  and  Ballin- 
taggart,  and  Gamicunas  from  Lugnagappul,  all  in  Kerry,  and 
Maglicunas  from  the  bilingual  at  Nevern,  in  Pembrokeshire.  For 
other  names  beginning  with  m'ln-  see  Holder,  who  has,  besides  Minu- 
coniiiSy  inscriptions  reading  Minui.  M{anu),  Minui  0{jfficina)  and 
0{fficina)  Minui,  as  well  as  the  derivative  names  MinuUis  and  Miiiuta, 
which  may  be  Celtic  and  not  Latin,  for  they  occur  in  Britain,  Spain, 
Gaul,  and  the  Rhine  region.  The  remarkable  inscription  Dieupala 
Minui  has  already  been  alluded  to  as  to  be  discussed  later.  Now  the 
least  common  factor  of  these  names  appears  to  be  minu-  which  seems 
to  have  meant  in  Irish  'little  or  small';  the  spelling  is  given  by 
Stokes  as  menh,  pronounced  menVy  in  Modern  Irish  meanhh  '  small ', 
and  meanhhaclia  '  small  particles,  smithereens  \  In  the  Welsh  story  of 
*  Kulhwch  and  Olwen '  the  equivalent  is  Menw,  the  name  of  a  magician 
who  shifts  his  shape  into  that  of  a  bird  (Oxford  Mabinogion,  p.  135). 
Further  afield  we  have  an  equivalent  in  Oscan  menvum  '  minuere\  and 
in  that  Latin  word  itself.   Thus  Minu-ku,  genitive  *minu-con-os,  would 

VI  2  D  2 


18       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

literally  mean  '  little  hound,  little  dog  \  in  the  sense  of '  little  guar- 
dian ',  with  cil  meaning,  as  it  usually  does  in  Celtic  personal  names, 
protector  or  champion. 

The  other  word  Komoneos,  derived  from  a  form  Commorw-s  (or 
Common-  of  the  n  declension),  is  related  to  the  Comos,  better  Commos^ 
already  mentioned  as  the  form  from  which  Commios  has  been  derived, 
and  like  the  latter  it  is  probably  to  be  regarded  as  an  adjective  with 
the  termination  -eo-s,  of  which  an  instance  OutAAoreos,  from  Gaul,  was 
given  on  p.  7  above.  Treated  in  the  same  way  we  should  have  to 
interpret  Komoneos  as  meaning  '  son  of  Kommonos  (or  of  Kommon-y. 
The  Irish  names,  to  which  those  beginning  here  with  comm,-  correspond, 
have  been  mentioned  on  p.  15  above. 

5.  (2)  S.  PiETRO  Di  Stabbio.  In  1875  a  peasant  digging  a  place  for 
vines  found  an  inscribed  stone  measuring  a  metre  by  0™40  and 
a  thickness  averaging  0"^  10,  together  with  some  urns  and  fibulae, 
which,  as  well  as  the  stone,  are  preserved  in  the  Archaeological 
Museum  in  the  Castello  Sforzesco  at  Milan.  The  stone  forms  Pauli's 
no.  17,  and  is  to  be  seen  attached  to  the  wall  of  a  ground-floor  room 
in  the  Rocchetta.  It  is  a  rough  slab  supposed  to  have  been  placed 
over  a  sarcophagus,  and  it  reads  from  right  to  left,  thus : — 

That  is  Komoneos  Varsileos :  I  could  detect  no  straight  lines  enclosing 
the  two  rows  of  letters.  The  latter  are  complete  except  the  last  3, 
which  is  damaged  and  disjointed  at  the  top;  the  only  other  possible 
reading  would  be  Varsilaos,  which  leaves  the  interpretation  open  to 
doubt ;  but  the  inscription  probably  means  '  Com(m)onean  Varsilean  ', 
that  is, '  belonging  or  relating  to  Com(m)onos  who  belongs  to  Varsilos ', 
or  '  Son  of  Com(m)onos  son  of  Varsilos  ',  or  else  '  Son  of  Com(m)onos 
and  of  Varsila'.  I  am  inclined  to  the  last  view,  that  the  unnamed 
person  interred  was  son  of  parents  named  Com(m)onos  and  Varsila. 
The  reason  for  his  not  being  named  was,  I  take  it,  his  being  an 
infant  that  had  not  lived  long  enough  to  receive  a  name  of  its  own. 

Komoneos  has  been  already  discussed,  but  the  other  name  Var- 
sileos implies  Varsilos  or  Varsila,  which,  however,  are  not  given  by 
Holder :  only  the  derivatives  Varsilios,  Varsilia,  appear,  with  the 
simpler  feminine  which  he  quotes  as  a  Latin  dative  Va?-sae,  imply- 
ing a  nominative  Varsa.  The  origin  of  that  name,  if  Celtic,  is 
vaguely  indicated  by  the  Irish  farr  *a  pillar  or  column'  from  an  early 
varsos,  Welsh  gwari;  now  written  gzadr,  '  the  uppermost  part  of  any- 
thing, the  top  of  the  back,  the  nape  of  the  neck  ' :  see  Stokes  (Fick, 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    19 

II.  275),  s.  V.  varsos-.  Holder  states  that  Pauli  saw  in  Varsa  a 
Venetic  name,  and  the  former  alludes  to  an  Etruscan  Varsiltus.  Though 
the  language  of  the  inscription  is  undoubtedly  Celtic,  I  should  not 
feel  surprised  if  the  names  Varsa,  Varsilitis  and  kindred  forms  should 
prove  to  be  not  of  Celtic  origin . 

5.  (3)  S.  PiETRo  Di  Stabbio.  Here,  according  to  Giussani  (loc.  cit., 
p.  17),  was  found  in  1857  a  rough  stone  reading,  from  left  to  right 
in  the  Etruscan  alphabet,  the  following  two  lines  : — 

MXFKOMEXI 

The  S  of  the  first  line  is  inverted  and  the  second  line  offers  a  difficulty ; 
through  the  middle  of  the  first  six  letters  a  sort  of  groove  runs  which 
was  probably  the  result  of  an  accident.  The  A,  I,  T  are  all  plain  ;  then 
comes  what  looks  like  an  F  joined  at  the  top  to  the  K,  but  the  two 
bars  are  horizontal,  with  the  upper  one  ending  at  the  top  end  of  the 
vertical  part  of  the  K  and  the  other  at  the  middle  of  it.  This  lower  bar, 
however,  might  be  only  a  portion  of  the  groove  to  which  I  have  already 
referred  as  produced  through  the  KO.  We  should  then  have  as  the 
writing,  FK  with  the  T  joining  the  top  end  of  the  perpendicular  of  the 
K,  but  a  Greek  V  has  no  business  here,  and  I  fall  back  on  F  =  ^,  that 
is  A,  though  Pauli  (no.  15)  does  not  give  the  bars  of  the  ^  but  merely  I  : 
in  other  words,  my  reading  would  be  AIXAKONEXI  while  his  was 
A I X I K  0  N  E  X I .  He  goes  further,  and  in  his  mind  he  squeezes  the  I ,  X,  I 
into  contact  one  with  another,  with  the  result  of  producing  one  of  the 
forms  of  the  sibilant  which  he  transcribes  s.  This  he  did  because  he 
fancied  that  Ait'ikoneti  sounded  very  improbable, '  eine  Form  aitikoneti 
hat  einen  sehr  unwahrscheinlichen  Klang,'  a  most  unsatisfactory  reason. 
I  see  no  excuse  for  reading  anything  but  Aitakoiieti  or  else  Aitikoneti^ 
which  is,  perhaps,  somewhat  less  probable. 

We  now  come  to  the  syntax,  which  is  at  once  seen  to  differ  from 
that  of  most  of  the  previous  inscriptions,  as  we  have  here  a  nomina- 
tive followed  by  a  genitive,  and  we  render  it  into  Latin  as  Alcouinus 
Aetaconeti  (Jiliit^),  that  is  '  Alcovinos  son  of  Aitaconetos  ' :  compare 
Martialis  Dannotali  '  Martial  son  of  Dannotalos  ',  or  Doiros  Segomari 
'  Doiros  son  of  Segomaros'  {C.  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy,  pp.  4,  10). 
The  names  before  us  are  difficult  to  explain,  though  they  may  both  be 
compounds,  Alko-Tiinos  and  Aita-coneti,  the  genitive  of  Aita-conetos. 
In  these  inscriptions  consonants  are  not  doubled,  so  we  might  expect 
to  find  the  name  Aita-coneti  written  elsewhere  Aita-conneti :  compare 
Con-conneto-duhnns  or  Con-conneto-dumnus,  and  see  the  Revue  Celtiqxte, 
IX.  82.     The  other  element  in  Aita-con{ii)etos  occurs  incomplete  as 

2  D  2— -2 


20        PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

Ait  .  .  .  on  an  urn  at  Cambridge,  and  as  A  eta  of  both  genders  else- 
where (C.  /.  L.,  VII.  1336.  1249,  III.  5029,  6513).  It  is  possible  that 
in  Aita  we  have  a  word  of  the  same  origin  as  Med.  Irish  aitCy 
Mod.  Ir.  oide  *  fosterer,  tutor '.  This,  should  it  prove  tenable,  would 
suggest  another  interpretation  of  the  epitaph,  with  aita  treated  as 
an  apposition  nominative,  thus — Alkouinos  foster  father  or  tutor  of 
Con(n)etos. 

The  other  name  A  IJco- vinos  has  n  representing  nn  for  nd\  for  it 
occurs  as  Alco-vindos  at  Rodez  in  the  dep.  of  Aveyron :  see 
Holder,  I.  89.  This  difference  of  spelling  indicates  a  possible 
difference  of  pronunciation  between  the  Celtic  of  the  Aveyron 
and  that  of  the  Ticino  and  North  Italy.  Vinos  =  Vindos  meant 
*  white',  but  the  meaning  of  Alko  is  uncertain.  Possibly  it  is 
of  the  same  origin  as  the  Welsh  word  alch  '  a  grating '  and  the 
compound  ast-alch  (plural  est-ylch),  which  is  probably  a  hybrid  begin- 
ning with  the  Latin  hasta  '  a  spear ',  and  means  '  a  shield  or  buckler "", 
literally  'a  spear-shield,  a  shield  to  ward  off  missiles'.  The  whole 
name  would  accordingly  mean  a  man  '  who  is  white  as  to  his  shield, 
one  who  carries  a  white  shield  \  The  whiteness  of  the  shield  is  referred 
to  in  Irish  stories  such  as  '  Fled  Bricrenn ' :  see  Windisch's  Irische 
Texte,  p.  259,  where  one  reads  of  the  three  rival  heroes  of  Ulster 
goaded  to  fury  against  one  another,  seizing  their  weapons,  with  the 
result  that  one  part  of  the  royal  hall  assumed  the  appearance  of  the 
quick  movements  of  a  flock  of  pure  white  birds,  which  was  due  to  the 
lime  or  chalk  of  the  shields — combo  enlaith  glegel  alleth  n-aile  [dind 
rigthig]  di  cailc  na  sciath  '  so  that  the  other  half  [of  the  king's  hall] 
was  (that  is  "  resembled  ")  a  bright  white  flock  of  birds  '. 

6.  SoRENGO,  to  the  south  of  the  Lake  of  Lugano,  is  a  place 
where  the  stone  which  is  Pauli's  no.  14  was  found  many  years  ago. 
But  when  I  came  to  inquire  after  it  I  found  that  the  parish  priest 
knew  nothing  about  it,  and  on  further  search  I  was  distressed 
to  learn  that  it  had  been  destroyed  after  having  been  removed  by  an 
engineer  to  a  place  near  Tesserete,  called  Sonvico.  This  I  learnt 
from  Father  Santo  Monte  who  is  in  charge  of  the  Civic  Museum  at 
Como,  and  one  of  the  archaeologists  best  informed  as  to  the  ancient 
inscriptions  of  the  whole  district.  Pauli  represents  the  stone  as 
reading  from  right  to  left  and  upwards  towards  the  bust,  which  has  the 
eyes  represented  by  two  points.  The  lettering  was  bounded  by  two 
parallel  lines  which  duly  joined  the  head  and  face  :  it  runs  thus — 

A>IA>iilVs!Al>laX:i3^oVM 

That  is  Piuonei  Tekialui  lala,  but  lata  is  probably  a  slip  made  by  the 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL  ^1 

inscriber  and  to  be  corrected  into  pala,  the  word  we  have  liad  so  often 
before.  Piuonei  is  a  name  from  bin  'quick,  living,  life',  whence 
Biuotialui :  see  p.  8  above. 

Accordingly  this  is  to  be  pronounced  Biuonei,  presumably  the  dative 
of  Biuonis  of  either  gender,  which  can  be  identified  with  Irish  Beoin 
given  as  the  name  of  a  virgin  in  the  *  Martyrology  of  Gorman  **  and  in 
the  '  Martyrology  of  Donegal  \  both  on  February  1. 

The  tek  of  the  other  name  is  difiicult  to  fix  in  point  of  pronuncia- 
tion as  the  possibilities  may  be  represented  thus  t  e  - :  on  the 
whole  I  am  inclined  to  select  dec.  The  word  would  then  be  Decidlui^ 
dative  masculine  of  Decialos,  formed  from  a  Celtic  name  Decios  or 
perhaps  the  Latin  Deems.  In  either  case  Decialos  would  mean  Decian, 
that  is  to  say  '  son  of  Decios "",  or  '  belonging  to  a  Decian  family'.  So 
the  inscription  may  be  rendered  '  a  burial  place  for  Biuonis  son  of 
Decios '.  Decios  seems  to  appear  in  Irish  as  Decce  (Bk.  of  Leinster, 
325*),  genitive  Deed,  Deed  2M%  325^,  Decce  325%  35P,  Deiee  336^, 
Deiece  350*^),  but  Deche  is  more  exactly  what  one  wants,  and  it  occurs 
as  a  genitive  (ib.  351*).  However,  the  doubling  of  the  consonant  may 
be  due  to  the  tendency  to  give  the  stems  of  hypocoristic  forms  of 
personal  names  a  staccato  pronunciation. 

7.  A 11  ANNO,  a  village  in  the  hills  to  the  west  of  Lugano  and  looking 
in  the  direction  of  Neggio.  According  to  the  owner  of  the  livery 
stables  from  whom  I  hired,  it  was  about  15  kilometres  from 
Lugano  ;  up  hill  and  down  dale,  I  found  it  a  very  pleasant  excursion. 
At  Aranno  in  1842  there  was  found,  according  to  Giussani's 
Tesserete,  p.  15,  a  stone  which  covered  a  sepulchre  devoid  of  bones 
or  any  furniture.  It  was  broken  by  the  workmen  in  the  course  of 
the  excavations,  and  only  four  fragments  of  it  were  recovered,  making, 
as  he  thinks,  altogether  about  a  square  metie  in  area.  This  find 
is  Pauli's  no.  13,  and  the  fragments,  which  I  shall  take  in  his 
order,  were  built  into  the  wall  of  a  house  in  the  village,  where 
one  reads  them  with  anything  but  comfort ;  they  ought  to  be  taken 
out  of  the  wall  and  placed  in  a  museum  where  one  could  judge 
whether  any  of  the  pieces  fit  one  another. 

They  all  read  from  right  to  left,  as  follows  : — 

(a)  . . .  A4  I  :  M04  .  .  . ,  that  is  .  .  .  Inm  ila  .  .  .  The  only  certain 
letters  are  ila  preceded  by  three  points  of  which  the  topmost  is  rendered 
uncertain  by  the  breakage.  The  top  of  the  first  >1  is  broken  oft";  the  O 
is  a  sort  of  patch  and  not  a  clear  circle ;  the  M  may  not  be  an  M  at 
all  but  N I  or  even  the  character  transcribed  s.  Pauli  gives  the 
fragment  as  aso7ii  '•  ila  with  aso  dotted  underneath  as  doubtful.  How  he 


22       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE  BRITISH  ACADEMY 

guessed  his  first  A  I  was  not  able  to  understand,  but  for  the  sort  of 
twisted  perpendicular  to  which  t  (  =  S)  is  sometimes  reduced  in  these 
inscriptions  there  is  room  before  the  O,  though  I  could  not 
find  it  there.  The  presumption,  however,  from  Pauli's  statement 
is  that  the  S  is  there,  as  against  my  negative.  The  reading  in  that 
case  would  be  . . .  Isom  [ila  . . .  These  letters  were  probably  bounded 
by  two  straight  lines:  the  one  underneath  is  there  still. 

(b)  ....  I A  ...  •  The  I  is  followed  by  a  part  of  the  perpendicular 
of  a  letter  which  I  cannot  identify  :  ,it  may  possibly  be  the  three  points 
which  would  be  required  for  the  reading,  AI-  as  the  end  of  a  name  in 
the  dative  feminine,  probably  followed  by  joa/a  :  Pauli  read  «i«.  The 
lettering  was  bounded  by  two  straight  lines. 

(c)  ...  A^  O I  X  A^  •  •  •  that  is, . . .  maiiona  . . .  These  letters  are 
all  certain.  The  M  is  of  what  is  considered  the  most  ancient  form, 
with  its  limbs  consisting  of  five  straight  lines,  and  the  A  is  somewhat 
peculiar  in  having  its  first  limb  gently  curved  inwards.  The  boundary 
parallels  are  present  here  also. 

(d)  This  is  a  block   with  portions  of  three  lines   of  reading   as 

follows  : —  ,  ^ , .  ^  . 

1:IVMA  .  .  . 


i:|j^O|>  .  .  . 

:IXIMA=.  .  . 

That  is  ...  aniui  p 

. . .  kionei  p 
. . .  aamiti 

The  first  A  of  the  first  line  has  its  first  limb  gone,  and  it  seems  to 
have  been  an  J^  without  the  middle  tag  :  so  with  the  second  symbol  in 
the  third  line  :  this  form  of  A  in  Latin  inscriptions  is  well  known,  but 
Pauli  makes  it  an  imperfect  ^  and  in  the  third  he  gives  no  A  of  any 
kind,  his  reading  being  \\ion\\.  The  first  letter  of  the  second  line  is 
imperfect  as  the  commencement  of  it  is  gone  :  I  am  not  sure  whether 
it  should  be  read  )l  or  X  ;  the  angles  seem  to  indicate  )\,  The  =, 
which  is  all  that  is  left  of  the  first  letter  of  the  third  line,  can  hardly 
have  belonged  to  any  other  than  T  or  3,  though  one  would  have 
expected  the  arms  to  droop.  The  letters  aamit  are  only  guesses,  and 
utterly  different  from  Pauli's  reading. 

Now  . .  ajiiui  was  the  dative  of  some  such  name  as  Slanios,  and 
. . .  kionei,  the  dative  of  some  such  form  as  Bucionis  or  Buccio  (of 
the  n  declension),  may  have  been  applied  to  a  woman.  We  may 
suppose  that  we  have  here  the  epitaphs  of  husband  and  wife,  which  is 
favoured  by  the  fact   that  the  p  of  the  one  line,  standing   nearly 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    23 

opposite  that  of  the  other  and  representing  pala,  formed  the  end  of 
the  line,  and  that  the  parallel  grooves  joined  to  form  the  outlines 
of  two  faces.  The  right  reading  of  the  third  line  has  not  yet  been 
discovered,  but  I  suggest  a  genitive  Aamiti :  see  Holder's  Amithis. 

Were  the  M  of  only  four  joints  to  prove  correct,  it  would  prove 
improbable  that  Mationa  .  .  with  an  older  form  of  M  could  have  been 
on  the  same  stone.  In  other  words,  we  should  have  to  regard  these 
fragments  as  belonging  to  at  least  two  stones.  Several  of  these  points 
could  be  investigated  more  thoroughly  if  the  stones  were  to  be  placed 
together  in  a  public  museum,  which  is  much  to  be  desired. 

II 

1.  Still  in  the  Ticino,  the  canton  which  has  Bellinzona  as  its 
capital,  we  come  to  a  place,  in  the  ancient  Vallis  Diubiasca,^ 
now  named  Giubiasco,  about  2^  miles  from  Bellinzona,  in  the 
direction  of  Locarno  at  the  head  of  Lago  Maggiore.  Here  great 
finds  were  made  in  the  years  1900  and  1901.  The  urns  and  other 
sepulchral  furniture  unearthed  there  have  been  divided  between  the 
Cantonal  Museum  at  Lugano  and  the  Swiss  'Landesmuseum*'  at  Zurich. 
The  latter  seems  to  have  all  the  inscribed  vessels  found  at  Giubiasco, 
I  visited  the  Zurich  Museum  at  the  beginning  of  April,  and  found 
Dr.  Viollier  at  the  head  of  the  Prehistoric  and  Roman  Section ;  he 
gave  me  every  facility  for  examining  the  inscriptions.  These  have 
been  published  by  Prof.  Herbig  in  the  Anzeiger  fur  Sclvweizerlsche 
Altertumskunde  (Zurich)  for  the  year  1905-6,  beginning  at  p.  187. 
He  calls  them  ' "  Keltoligurische ""  Inschriften  aus  Giubiasco  '.  At 
least  three  of  them  are  scribbles  which  I  cannot  read,  and  two  of 
them  seem  to  be  in  Latin,  of  which  more  anon.  The  others  are  the 
following : — 

(1)  Reading  from  right  to  left  we  have  Vi3XA,  that  is  Atepu^ 
on  a  black  varnished  bowl,  marked  15974  in  the  museum,  measuring 
0™06  in  height  by  0™  16  as  its  greatest  diameter.  The  writing  has 
been  scratched  just  above  the  foot  of  the  vessel. 

This  name  I  take  to  be  a  nominative  of  the  n  declension,  and 
I  should  compare  it  with  Frontu  borrowed  from  Latin  where  it  was 
FrontOy  and  with  Elvontiu  and  Nappi-sehi.  Compare  Seton-ius,  with 
a  Latin  ending,  and  see  my  C.  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy,  pp.  46, 
54,  59.     All  that  need  be  said  oi  Atepu  is  that  it  was  a  hypocoristic 

^  See  d'Arbois  de  Jubainville's  Premiers  Habitants  de  P Europe,  W.  68,  where  he 
gives  '  Vallis  Diubiasca  infra  fines  Langobardorum '  as  mentioned  in  the  year  739 
in  the  testament  of  Abbou  in  favour  of  the  Abbev  of  Novalese. 


M       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE  BRITISH   ACADEMY 

or  shortened  form  of  some  such  names  as  the  Gaulish  Atepo-maros 
and  Atepo-rix. 

(2)  Also  reading  from  right  to  left,  on  a  small  urn  no.  15747, 
vre  have  ^0^3'1VQ>  that  is  Mupelos,  with  the  tops  of  the  letters 
looking  towards  the  top  of  the  vase.  The  vessel  is  0°^  11  high 
by  0"*  13  as  its  greatest  diameter.  The  perpendicular  of  the  r  is 
produced  a  little  below  the  semicircle  of  the  letter,  which  makes  it 
look  somewhat  like  a  flabby  q.  There  is  one  peculiar  letter  here, 
to  wit,  the  last  but  one,  which  I  have  given  as  O,  crudely  formed,  but 
Herbig  has  read  it  O,  which  is  what  one  would  expect. 

In  this  North  Etruscan  alphabet,  owing  to  the  habit  of  not  doubling 
consonants  or  of  distinguishing  between  voiced  and  voiceless  mutes, 
we  are  left  at  liberty  to  suggest  Ruhellos  as  the  real  name,  which 
I  do  on  consideration  of  the  data  for  comparison  supplied  by  Holder. 
He  gives  first  Rubel{l)inus,  which  he  cites  from  Neris  and  Jublains  in 
France:  see  C.I.L.,  XIII.  10006.  74,  166,  where  it  is  represented  as 
part  of  a  stamp  impressed  on  basins,  apparently  giving  the  maker's 
name.  There  is  a  second  name  in  point,  namely,  Rubelliasca,  where 
he  detaches  asca  and  infers  a  man's  name  Rtibellius,  but  treats 
the  whole  Ruhelliasca  as  the  antecedent  of  the  modern  place- 
name  Roviasca ;  this  latter,  however,  may  come  from  a  shorter 
personal  name,  Rubio-s,  said  to  occur  on  bronze  coins  of  the  Atrebates. 
That  is,  the  place  may  have  been  called  Rubell'iasca  and  Rubiasca  in- 
differently, implying  the  equivalence,  roughly  speaking,  of  Riibellios 
and  Rubios.  Of  the  I  forms  two  at  least  are  mentioned  in  guide-books 
as  local  names  not  far  from  Lugano,  to  the  east  Ruvigliana  and 
somewhere  to  the  north  Rovella,  in  point  of  form  the  precise  equiva- 
lent of  our  Rupelo-s.  The  forms  without  I  also  make  a  remarkable 
group,  containing,  beside  Rubios  recalling  the  place-name  Rovio, 
south  of  Lugano,  the  two  gods'  names  Rupac-asco  (the  hyphen 
is  Holder's)  and  Robeo,  in  an  inscription  which  he  cites  from 
Demonte  in  Piedmont — L.  Crispins  Augustirms  duumvir  diis 
Rubacasco  et  Robeoni  votum  s.  1. 1,  m.  Holder  also  enumerates  such 
modern  names  as  Rouvenac  (Aube),  Rubigny  (Ardennes),  Ruvigny 
(Aube),  and  Rubignacco  (in  the  dialect  of  Frejus),  all  converging  on 
Rubiniacuniy  derived  from  a  man's  name  Rubinios.  Prof.  Herbig 
compares  other  kindred  forms.  The  origin  of  these  names  is  obscure, 
but  they  may  be  kindred  with  the  Latin  word  robiis,  robur  '  the  heart 
or  core  of  a  tree,  especially  the  oak,  hardness,  firmness,  force '.  Holder 
calls  attention  to  Rubacascos  and  Rnbelliasca  as  having  a  Liffurian 
element  asco-s  and  asca  appended.  The  addition,  be  it  noticed,  is  to 
ready-made  Celtic  names,  Rubdco-s  and  Rubcllio-s. 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    23 

(3)  On  an  earthenware  vessel,  numbered  14909,  and  measuring  in 
height  0"  11  by  0^19  as  its  largest  diameter,  we  have,  reading  from 
right  to  left : — 

ia'^o>iiXA 

That  is  Atilonei.  The  N  is  disjointed  at  the  top,  and  there  is  a  crack 
near  the  I,  but  no  letter  is  gone. 

The  name  is  a  dative,  but  to  which  of  two  stems  it  belongs  is  not 
certain,  Atilo7ii-s  of  the  i  declension  or  Atilo  of  the  n  declension. 
Holder  ^  pronounces  for  the  latter,  for  he  has  an  instance  of  this  kind 
of  dative,  to  wit,  a  Latin  Atiloni  in  an  inscription  from  Novara :  see 
C.  I,  Z<.,  V,  6533,  which  reads  as  restored  by  the  editor : — 

C  •  ATILONI  •  CALLIxMO[rpho] 
QVI  •  VIXIT  •  ANNIS  •  XIIII 

Novara  is  in  a  district  where  the  Etruscan  alphabet  and  spelling 
were  familiar,  so  I  treat  Atilonei  as  entitled  to  nn  in  spite  of  the  Latin 
inscription,  where  one  would  have  expected  Atilonni  with  nn  or  nd, 
for  which  nn  sometimes  stands.  This  is  not  a  mere  guess,  as  is  proved 
by  Latin  inscriptions  involving  a  name  which  is  nearly  related,  to  wit, 
Atlondus,  genitive  Atlondi,  from  Atelondus,  genitive  Atelondi :  see 
C.  /.  L.,  II.  76,  3082,  4980.  We  happen  to  have  the  genitive  of  this 
name  in  Ireland,  to  wit,  in  Ogam  on  a  stone  at  Kilbonane  in  Kerry, 
and  the  spelling  there  is  Addelona  or  Addilona — I  was  not  certain 
which,  but  Prof.  Stewart  Macalister  reads  Addilona.  In  either  case 
it  has  lost  a  final  s  that  would  complete  it  into  Addelon-as,  which  in 
Continental  Celtic  would  be  found  to  end  in  -os  :  Irish  inscriptions 
have  a  for  Protoceltic  o.  Here  we  also  have  n  for  nn  or  nd,  but  the 
singling,  though  common  enough,  was  not  a  rule  of  Ogmic  spelling 
as  in  the  North  Etruscan  orthography  of  Celtic  names.  The  element 
lond-  is  explained  by  the  Irish  adjective  lond  '  wild,  excited,  fierce, 
strong',  whence  Mod.  Irish  loinne,  fem.,  Avhich  Dineen  explains  as 
meaning  'joy,  gladness,  rapture;  great  excitement ;  rage;  strength, 
force  ',  Welsh  llonn,  lion  '  cheerful,  ioctindiis,  laetus  \  The  prefix  ate 
or  ati  is  in  manuscript  Irish  ath-,  aith-,  Welsh  at-,  ad-,  and  has  pretty 
much  the  meaning  of  re-  in  Latin.  So  the  names  here  in  question 
might  be  regarded  as  signifying  *  wild  of  mood  or  temper,  whether 
with  joy  or  anger  \ 

1  Holder  under  Atilonei  (vol.  III.  724),  which  he  queries  as  Ligurian,  refers 
the  reader  to  a  Latin  nominative  Atilonius,  which  I  have  not  succeeded  in  finding 
in  the  columns  of  his  great  Treasury.  Prof.  Herbig  (loc.  cit.,  p.  204)  suggests 
in  connexion  with  Atilonei  a  nominative  Atilonius,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think, 
that,  on  purely  Celtic  ground,  it  should  be  either  Atiloni-s  or  else  Atilo  of  the 
n  declension. 


26       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

(4)  Another  earthenware  vessel  (no.  13988),  described  as  a  '  vaso  a 
trottola"'  0""  13  high  by  0™  19  at  its  greatest  diameter,  has  on  it 
letters  reading  from  right  to  left  which  I  copied  as  : — 

ixi3\i'i>iAaii 

That  is  Pirakiuue^,  which  I  would  resolve  into  Pirahl  vves ;  but  there 
are  several  remarks  to  make  on  the  lettering,  which  is  altogether  crude. 
In  the  first  place  the  ^  is  imperfect  in  the  lower  arm,  but  I  took  it  to 
be  hy  to  wit,  somewhat  resembling  the  one  occurring  on  the  Todi  Stone, 
twice  as  |(  (C.  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy,  p.  71),  except  that  the  two 
parts  touch  in  the  Giubiasco  instance,  while  here  the  lower  part  of  the 
curve  is  almost  completely  gone.  Passing  the  next  letter  one  comes  to 
something  like  a  *  broad  arrow ',  ^  :  I  would  regard  it  as  a  W  or  V  V 
ligatured  of  which  more  forms  than  one  occur  in  the  Celtic  inscrip- 
tions of  the  Continent  (loc.  cit.,  pp.  84,  95):  and  for  VV  (fully 
written),  especially  between  vowels,  compare  a  few  mentioned  in  my 
Celtoe  and  Galli,  pp.  63,  64.  Up  and  down  the  pages  of  Holder  more 
will  be  found.  In  any  case  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  to  think  that 
we  have  here  a  symbol  for  Greek  x^  The  last  letter  of  the  line  is  ^^ 
but  it  is  carelessly  formed  with  what  should  be  its  last  bottom  corner 
left  wide  open. 

Having  thus  attempted  to  establish  the  reading  Pirahivves  the 
question  arises  as  to  resolving  it :  to  begin  with,  I  seem  to  find  here 
the  genitive  of  Biracos,  which  Holder  cites  from  a  silver  coin,  and  in  the 
Etruscan  spelling  it  is  the  genitive  of  Pirakos  seen  on  another  silver 
coin,  to  wit,  one  found  near  Burwein  in  Canton  Graubiinden.  There  the 
nominative  reads  from  right  to  left.  See  Pauli,  pp.  6,  91,  where  he 
treats  it  as  pronounced  Biracos,  which  had  a  Latin  derivative  Biracius  : 
compare  also  Biraco,  Latin  genitive  Biracoriis,  giveii  by  Holder  together 
with  other  related  forms:  see  C.I.L.,  III.  5698,  V.  4153,  VIII. 
5630.  In  Ireland  it  occurs  in  Ogam  at  Ballyknock  in  Co.  Cork,  in 
the  doubtful  genitive  form  of  Biraco,  for  the  o  is  not  certain,  and  the 
complete  reading  may  have  been  Biraci  of  the  same  declension  as  on 
the  Continent.  The  dative  BipaKorcav  occurs  at  Alise-Ste.-Reine,  and 
is  probably  to  be  divided  into  Bipa-KOToov  with  its  first  element  to  be 
equated  with  the  stem  of  Irish  Mr,  bio?',  Welsh  ber  '  a  spear,  lance, 
pike,  a  spit',  Latin  ve?'u.  This  is  supported  by  the  mediaeval  Irish 
form  which  was  Bcrach,  genitive  Beraich  or  Beraig.  So  Pirakos  = 
Biracos,  Berach  should  mean  '  armed  with  the  spear  \  See  C.  Inscr. 
of  Gaul,  p.  46,  and  Stokes's  Martyrology  of  Oengus,  pp.  74,  242. 

After  Piraki  we  seem  to  have  imes,  but  what  does  that  mean  ?  I 
should  fancy  it  to  be  the  beginning  of  a  longer  word,  but  what  that 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS    OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    T! 

Avord  may  have  been  I  cannot  say.  Possibly  it  may  have  been  iiesu- 
•good  ',  which  became  in  Irishym  '  worth,  equivalent  in  vahie',  Welsh 
gzcizv  '  worthy,  worth  one's  while '.  In  that  case  I  should  interpret 
the  whole  Piraki  iiues,  to  mean  '  Biracos's  property ' :  compare  the 
English  '  So  and  so's  goods  ' ;  and  German  '  Hab  und  Giit  \  meaning 
*  goods  and  chattels  '. 

(5)  No.  154S1  is  a  little  earthenware  vessel  measuring  0™  05  in 
height  by  0"°  22  greatest  diameter.    It  seems  to  read  from  right  to  left 

That  is  Aximiai,  or  else  Aximai,  followed  at  a  distance  by  a  letter 
which  I  could  not  make  out.  There  is  a  groove  drawn  so 
clumsily  above  the  letters  that  it  goes  through  the  corners  of  the 
last  ones.  With  regard  to  my  reading,  I  must  say  that  I  arrived 
at  it  only  by  leaving  out  of  consideration  a  number  of  scratches, 
which  I  would  treat  as  accidental.  There  is  a  difficulty  about 
what  I  have  come  to  regard  as  a  Latin  M  instead  of  an  ancient  ^ . 
For,  more  exactly  speaking,  it  looks  as  if  the  scribbler  first  made 
a  very  crude  m  like  the  7n  of  Mimiku  or  oi  Komoneos  (p.  17  above), 
and  then  tried  to  alter  it  into  an  ordinary  Latin  M.  Thus  the  reading 
would  be  Aximai  (dative  feminine  of  Axima)  not  Aximiai.  Professor 
Herbig's  reading  is  qsimei.  The  last  letter  I  have  read  is  il  with 
possibly  two  ornamental  short  strokes,  such  as  are  not  unusual  in 
inscriptions  in  the  North  Etruscan  alphabet ;  this  combination  is  not 
to  be  confused  with  Pauli's  i|i  =  hy  where  the  short  lines  are  permanent : 
see  his  discussion  of  that  point,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  49-51.  The  most 
remarkable  character  here,  however,  is  Y.i  or  ^  with  its  two  upper 
points  joined  by  a  straight  line.  The  letter  X  had  as  its  ordinary 
value  in  the  North  Etruscan  alphabet  that  of  T,  so  I  venture  to 
regard  the  horizontal  line  as  meant  to  prevent  our  pronouncing  it  so 
in  this  instance,  but  as  Latin  X  =  Ics.  The  line  joining  the  two  top 
arms  of  the  X  seems  to  be  extemporized,  for  in  an  inscription  at 
Ornavasso,  to  be  mentioned  later,  the  horizontal  line  is  placed  under- 
neath to  join  the  arms  at  the  bottom,  thus,  X,  as  will  be  explained 
presently.  This  view  is  corroborated  not  a  little  by  the  fact  that  the 
name  exists  elsewhere  :  witness  Holder's  instance  of  Aximus  the  epony- 
mous genius  of  Aime-en-Tarantaise  in  Savoy ;  also  as  the  name  of  a 
man.  The  feminine  would  be  Axima,  which  we  seem  to  have  here  in 
the  dative  case.  Needless  to  say  Axim-  seems  to  supply  the  basis  of 
the  French  Aime  itself.  There  are  related  forms  quoted  by  Holder, 
such  as  Axiiis  and  Axia,  Axioiinus,  AxiUins,  and  others.  They  may 
all  be  related  to  the  Greek  word  af to?  '  worth  so  much ' ;  compare 


28       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

fxz'S?  a^ios  =  fivav  aymv  '  having  the  weight  of  a  mina ' :  see  Curtius's 
Grundzllge  der  griechischen  Etymologie^f  p.  170:  he  regards  a^to?  as 
derived  from  the  root  ag  as  in  Latin  agere,  axis.  The  same  enters 
into  various  Celtic  words,  such  as  Irish  ad-aig  '  Lat.  agit  \  in  Welsh  a 
(for  agit)  '  goes  or  will  go '  (see  Stokes,  Fick  II,  p.  6).  But  of  more 
particular  interest  is  the  Irish  genitive  Essemna  or  Essamna  (Bk.  of 
Leinster,  fo.  338%  347^  and  Meyer's '  Rawlinson  B.  502  \  fo.  137^  144,*), 
implying  a  nominative  either  Acsiomoni-s  of  the  i  declension  or 
Acsiomon-io-s  of  the  io  declension.  Acsiomon-  compares  with  the 
Irish  (Ogam)  genitive  Segamon-as  (in  Latin  Segomo,  dative  Segomoni, 
discussed  in  C.  Inscr.  of  Gaul,  pp.  73,  74);  and  Ario-mo  of  the 
n  declension  making  in  Old  Irish  nom.  Airem,  genitive  Airemon  or 
Eremon^  later  genitive  E7-einoin.  This  late  genitive  has,  roughly 
speaking,  a  parallel  in  the  Book  of  Leinster  (350®)  in  the  genitive 
Essamain,  which  comes  still  nearer  to  the  late  form  Segamain  for 
Segamon,  Ogmic  Segamonas.  Thus  Essamain  points  indirectly  to  an 
early  form  Acs'wmonas,  Continental  Axiomonos. 

(6)  Some  very  crude  scratches  on  the  earthenware  vessel  no.  15229, 
measuring  0°^  05  high  by  0°^  11  greatest  diameter,  seem  to  read  from 
right  to  left  AM  I  ^^5  that  is  Koisa.  The  o  is  shaped  rather  like 
a  square  with  the  right-hand  lower  line  produced  below  its  junction 
with  that  of  the  other  side ;  also  with  a  straight  line  bisecting  the 
figure  from  the  top  angle  to  that  at  the  bottom :  in  other  words,  it 
would  be  a  sort  of  parallel  to  O  for  O — in  any  case  it  must  have  been 
meant  for  a  vowel.  The  last  letter  but  one  may  have  been  s  but 
possibly  an  m.  Taking  the  former,  the  name  would  be  Koisa,  which 
Holder  cites  from  a  silver  coin  of  the  Celts  of  Pannonia :  so  Coisa 
would  seem  to  be  masculine.  It  recalls  the  man"'s  name  written 
Koisis,  on  the  Todi  bilingual  (C.  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy,  pp.  70-4). 
Should  the  letter  m  prove  the  more  probable  we  should  have  Koima,  a 
woman's  name  of  the  same  origin  as  the  derived  Koimila  on  one  of  the 
Levo  stones  to  be  mentioned  later.  Dr.  Herbig's  reading  here  is? 
K(f)isa  or  Koisa. 

(7)  A  few  scratches  occur  also  on  the  vessel  marked  no.  15288, 
measuring  in  height  0"'  095  by  0°"  25  greatest  diameter ;  the  letters  are 
inside  the  circle  of  its  foot,  and  they  may  possibly  be  >|  PlV,  that  is 
wak,  read  towards  the  left,  and  looked  at,  as  it  were,  from  the  centre 
of  the  circle.  Dr.  Herbig  suggests  xak,  which  implies  his  looking  at 
the  graffito  from  the  same  direction  as  I  have  suggested.  I  agree  as 
to  the  strokes  he  has  read,  but  I  would  interpret  it  rather  as  nnak  or 
wak.  What  either  ^ak  or  zvak  meant  I  cannot  guess ;  but  if  the 
former  proves  tenable,  I  should  regard  it  as  a  stray  non-Celtic  word 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    ^29 

or  abbreviation  :    I  should  be  surprised  to  find  any  use  for  either 
X  or  (^  in  Celtic  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Bellinzona. 

(8)  On  the  bottom  of  a  simple  urn  measuring  0'"  09  in  height  and 
having  the  same  as  its  greatest  diameter  we  have  what  reads  from 
left  to  right  A  V  M  A  or  from  right  to  left  Amva.  There  is  no 
means,  I  fear,  of  deciding  in  which  of  the  two  directions  the  letters 
were  meant  to  be  read,  for  both  A's  are  of  the  old  form  A,  consisting 
of  only  two  lines.  The  A  standing  by  the  V  is  somewhat  peculiar  in 
having  its  outer  limb  consisting  of  two  pieces :  where  it  approaches 
the  other  limb  it  ceases  to  be  perceptible,  but  I  seemed  to  detect  a 
continuation  of  it  on  the  other  side  as  if  it  had  been  roughly  X. 
The  bottom  of  the  V  is  somewhat  damaged,  the  surface  having  been 
bruised  a  little  by  some  accident.  I  can  make  nothing  of  Qiih&c  Auma 
or  Anma.  On  turning  to  Dr.  Herbig's  account  of  this  little  inscrip- 
tion, I  find  that  he  takes  no  notice  of  what  I  regard  as  the  production 
of  the  outer  limb  of  the  left-hand  A,  and  that  he  thinks  the  lower  and 
larger  piece  of  that  limb  is  the  result  of  accident.  Disregarding 
that,  he  is  able  to  read  (from  right  to  left)  |  V  M  A  that  is  Amiii, 
which,  had  it  been  possible,  I  should  welcome,  and  regard  as  the  dative 
case  o^  Amos,  meaning  'to  or  for  Amos'.  Further,  I  should  treat  it 
as  the  short  spelling  of  Ammos  for  an  earlier  form  of  the  Amhos  which 
we  have  in  Cisiambos  on  coins  of  the  Lexovii,  who  left  their  name  to 
Lisieux  in  the  dep.  of  Calvados :  see  Holder,  and  compare  the  related 
forms  cited  by  him,  such  as  Amba,  Ambatus,  Ambata,  Am(m)his, 
Am{in)ia,  and  others.  Lastly,  the  reading  of  this  inscription  as  a  dative 
Amui  would  harmonize  well  enough  with  the  fact  that  the  Giubiasco 
grave  from  which  it  comes  has  been  pronounced  the  most  ancient  of 
the  group  (Herbig,  loc.  cit.,  p.  190).  But  I  suspect  traces  of  Roman 
influence  in  the  M  and  the  two  A's,  and  unfortunately  I  do  not  here 
feel  able  to  accept  Dr.  Herbig's  reading.  Possibly  the  reading  Auma 
is  to  be  taken  and  equated  with  Oma,  quoted  by  Holder  from  a 
Gaulish  silver  coin  given  by  Muret  &  Chabouillet  in  their  Catalogue 
des  Mommies  Gauloises  de  la  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  5936.  Against 
this  it  must  be  admitted  that  Holder  seems  to  treat  Ovia  as  only  an 
abbreviation  ;  but  compare  Omise,  p.  59  below. 

(9)  Thus  far  all  the  inscriptions  scratched  on  the  vessels  from 
Giubiasco  read  from  right  to  left,  including  the  last  though  doubt- 
ful ;  but  there  remain  possibly  two  or  three  which  read  in  the  con- 
trary direction.  Of  these  the  first  to  be  mentioned  is  D  E  M  V ,  that  is 
Remxi,  which  looks  as  if  it  stood  for  the  older  dative  Remui  '  for 
Remos ' :  the  plural  was  Remi,  the  name  of  the  leading  tribe  of 
the   Belgic    Gauls,    which   is    perpetuated   by  that    of  their   town, 


30      PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

'  Durocortonim  Remorum',  which  we  call  Rheims,  in  the  dep.  of 
the  Marne.  Holder  cites  Remus,  genitive  Remi,  also  as  an  ordinary 
personal  name  found  outside  the  territory  of  the  Remi,  for  instance 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Vicenza  in  North  Italy,  and  that  of  Trent 
in  the  Tyrol :  see  also  Remus  in  the  Latin  inscription  found  at  Alise 
mentioned  in  the  C.  Inscr.  of  Gaul,  p.  34. 

(10)  The  next  vessel  is  conically  shaped  and  varnished  black,  with 
a  low  foot  and  a  projecting  rim.  The  height  is  0™  095  and  the  greatest 
diameter  is  0°^  25  :  the  form  and  dimensions  are  the  same  as  of  no.  (7). 
The  inscription  is  on  the  outside  just  above  the  foot ;  and,  reading  from 
left  to  right,  I  make  it  l>  |  O  ^^  that  is  Riop.  I  may  add  that  a  straight 
line  slanting  slightly  upwards  runs  through  the  bottom  of  the  I,  the 
lower  portion  of  the  O,  and  beneath  the  short  line  of  the  ^  ;  it  can 
hardly  be  accidental,  but  what  the  object  of  it  may  have  been 
I  cannot  say,  unless  it  was  to  cancel  the  writing. 

The  letters  seem  to  give  us  only  the  first  portion  of  a  name  to  be 
pronounced  Riop.  or  Riob.  and  analysed  into  Rio-p.  or  Rio-b.  in  which 
rio  is  a  reduced  form  of  r'lgo-  '  kingly,  royal  "*,  as  to  which  see  Holder, 
s.  V.  rlgo-.  Compare  Rio-be  cited  by  him  as  the  ancient  name  of 
Chiteaubleau,  in  the  dep.  of  Seine-et-Marne,  and  the  Irish  name 
Rig-bard,  from  Rlgo-hardo-s  (Irish  Ne7mius,  genitive  Rigbaird,  p.  ^QQ), 
and  Rig-bardan  for  R'igo-bardano-s  (Bk.  of  Leinster,  329'',  336**), 
genitive  Rigbardain,  in  Anglo-Irish  Riaf'dan. 

(11)  The  scratches  to  be  next  mentioned  are  on  a  cup  of  a  hemi- 
spherical form  0™  05  in  height  with  the  upper  diameter  of  0"*  16.  The 
letters  are  on  the  outside,  and  their  tops  almost  touch  the  upper  rim 
of  the  vessel.  I  guess  them  to  be  uou  or  an  abbreviation  of  some 
longer  name ;  but  Dr.  Herbig  reads  them  lou,  and  he  may  be  right. 
There  is  the  initial  difficulty  in  my  case,  that  I  cannot  decide  in 
which  direction  the  scribble  is  to  be  read. 

<^^^  A  small  torque  or  bracelet  of  silver  has  cut  on  it  the  letters 
X  D  I  V  in  which  Herbig  sees  Roman  numerals. 

^*^  Here  must  be  mentioned  a  fine  bronze  helmet  from  Giubiasco 
measuring  0""  24  in  height,  with  interior  diameters  of  0™  21  and  0*"  19, 
a  decidedly  brachycephalic  case.  The  rim  or  seam  forming  the 
jointure  of  the  two  halves  of  the  helmet  begins  in  the  middle  of  its 
back,  and  runs  right  over  the  top  and  ends  in  the  middle  of  the  fore- 
head. The  helmet  is  heavy,  and  I  found  on  trying  it  on,  that  it 
came  down  completely  over  my  nose  and  reached  nearly  to  my  chin. 

Near  the  beginning  of  the  seam  to  which  I  have  referred,  and  cut 
into  it,  is  an  inscription  which  is  in  the  Latin  language,  mostly  in 
Latin  letters  but  showing  the  influence  of  Etruscan  writing  in  some  of 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE  GAUL     31 

the  characters.  I  took  them  to  be  1 1 M  O I  X  0  ^fe,  that  is  Enoixo  fe(cit). 
The  use  of  Latin  i|  for  E  is  to  be  noticed,  the  FE  have  exactly  the 
droop  of  the  North  Etruscan  form  of  AE,  and  the  two  O's  consist 
each  of  four  straight  hnes,  O,  somewhat  badly  jointed  and  left  open 
at  the  bottom,  ^ .  I  took  the  second  letter  to  be  a  disjointed  N  but 
Dr.  Herbig  reads  it  A I ,  that  is  li. 

My  reading  would  analyse  itself  into  En-oixo^  and  with  Oixo  one 
may  equate  01  SO  in  a  fragmentary  inscription  from  Auch  in  the 
dep.  of  Gers  (C  /.  L.,  XIII.  478).  Holder  puts  it  down  as  Oiso  . . . 
and  regards  it  as  a  dative  feminine,  which  he  should  not  do  without 
indicating  how  he  finishes  the  word.  Owing  to  the  very  imperfect 
state  of  the  epitaph,  it  is  impossible  to  prove  that  Oiso  is  not  the 
whole  name  and  an  unlikely  dative  feminine.  The  prefixed  en  per- 
haps represents  endo-,  enda-,  enna-,  -eni  or  -ini  '  in ' ;  compare  such 
names  cited  by  Holder  as  Endo-vellicus,  Ena-harri,  Eni-boiidius,  ini- 
gena  '  a  daughter ',  literally  '  inborn  \  I  should  rather  have  expected 
an  I  making  the  name  into  Eni-oixo.  All  this  depends  on  reading  N  ; 
but  I  am  by  no  means  certain  that  Dr.  Herbig's  reading,  though  he 
gives  it  with  hesitation  as  (E)lioiro,  should  not  be  preferred.  In  that 
case  I  should  be  inclined  to  associate  the  name  with  the  . .  lioiso  . .  of 
one  of  the  potsherds  given  in  Pauli's  no.  18  (p.  39,  below).  They  were 
found  at  Rondineto  near  Como,  and  are  now  in  the  Como  Museum  : 
I  did  not  succeed  in  detecting  in  them  anything  very  conspicuously 
Celtic  as  regards  language.  In  any  case  . .  lioiso . .  should  probably 
be  completed  at  the  beginning  into  Elioiso . . . ;  there  is  no  difficulty 
as  to  X  and  5,  since  in  Latin  x  may  have  stood  for  ss.  There  might, 
however,  be  some  difficulty  as  to  the  lambda  form  of  the  /  in  II A I O I XO 
should  that  prove  the  correct  reading.  A  for  I  is  regular  in  the  Sondrio 
alphabet  (Pauli,  p.  56),  but  why  should  we  have  it  at  Giubiasco  ?  This, 
however,  leaves  a  previous  question  unanswered — the  name  was  that 
of  the  maker,  but  where  was  his  workshop .'' 

2.  Mesocco  (or  Misox)  gives  its  name  to  the  valley  in  which  it  lies, 
otherwise  called  the  Val  Mesolcina,  and  the  river  draining  it  is  the 
Moesa  which  empties  itself  into  the  Ticino  some  miles  above  Bellinzona, 
whence  there  is  an  electric  railway  to  Mesocco,  where  it  ends,  some 
twenty  miles  from  Bellinzona.  About  nine  miles  further  one  reaches 
the  village  of  St.  Bernardino,  which  gives  its  name  to  the  well-known 
Bernardino  Pass,  through  which  lies  the  way  to  the  Spliigen  and  the 
Hinter  Rhein.  Here  at  Mesocco  a  plot  of  ground  was  being  cleared 
of  stones  years  ago  when  a  kind  of  mica  slab  was  come  upon  about 
a  metre  in  the  ground.  It  was  inscribed,  and  seems  to  have  formed 
the  cover  of  a  grave.      It  measures  about  O'"  75  by  O'''  25,  and  is 


32        PROCEEDLNGS   OF  THE  BRITISH   ACADEMY 

broken  at  both  ends,  but  no  letters  appear  to  have  been  lost.  It  is 
now  in  the  museum  at  Chur,  and  the  reading  consists  of  two  lines  from 
left  to  right,  as  follows,  with  a  groove  running  between  them  as  in 
the  photograph,  II.  2,  Mesocco,  which  see  : — 

This  makes  Raneni  Valannal,  and  on  the  lettering  I  have  the  follow- 
ing notes  to  make.  The  last  ^  in  the  upper  line  has  its  lower  arm 
curved,  and  ending  perpendicular  to  the  interlinear  groove.  The 
tag  of  the  \^  reaches  in  both  cases  to  the  level  of  the  middle  of  the 
letters.  I  observed  that  the  N's  all  ended  almost  vertically,  and  that 
the  second  of  them  did  not  appear  to  me  so  badly  formed  as  it  looks 
in  the  photograph. 

The  first  line  is  incomplete,  for  complete  it  should  be  Valaunali : 
why  the  final  vowel  of  the  genitive  ending  should  have  been  omitted 
does  not  appear ;  it  was  not  for  want  of  room.  Treating  Valaunali 
as  the  complete  form  it  would  be  the  genitive  of  Valaunalo-s  '  Valau- 
nian',  that  is  '  related  to  Valaunos  in  the  sense  probably  of  being  his 
son '.  Valaunos  occurs  in  Irish  Ogam  from  the  parish  of  Aglish  in 
Co.  Cork  as  a  genitive  Valamni  with  m  representing  the  sound  of 
nasal  v.  The  Gaulish  was  Vellavno-s  as  in  Vellauno-dunmn  and 
Dumno-tiellauno-s,  Cassi-uellauno-s,  Catu-uellatmi,  nominative  singular 
Catu-uellaunos.  It  is  not  quite  certain  what  uellaunos  would  become 
in  Welsh  :  compare  Celtic  Britain^  p.  289^  But  the  forms  Dyfn- 
•wallaun  and  Cad-wallaun  would  seem  to  prove  that  it  was  gwallauny 
guollaun,  groallon.  This  would  help  us  to  correct  the  Goidelic  Valamni 
into  Vallam7ii,  which  occurs  in  the  MS.  '  Rawlinson  B.  502 '  fo.  120% 
line  34,  to  wit,  in  Hui  Follomuin  '  Descendants  of  Follaman  \  and  in 
the  Book  of  Leinster,  fo.  313%  in  the  same  clan  name  Hui  Fallamaiuy 
in  later  spelling  0' Fallamhain,  reduced  in  Anglo-Irish  to  OTallon 
(of  the  Clann  Uadach  in  the  barony  of  Athlone,  Co.  Roscommon):  see 
the  indexes  to  The  Four  Masters  and  the  Annals  of  Ulster.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  the  Valauno-s  postulated  by  Valaunal-i  approaches 
Valamni  more  closely  than  it  does  the  Vellauni  of  Gaulish  and 
Brythonic  ;  but  Holder  quotes  some  forms  with  vail-  and  not  veil- : 
see  his  Vallaunus,  Vallaunius,  and  others. 

The  other  name  Raneni  may  stand  either  for  Rajineni  or  for  Raneni^ 
The  latter  would  be  referable  to  the  same  group  of  words  as  Welsh 
rhawn  *  the  long  hairs  of  a  horse's  tail  \  Irish  von  '  horsehair ',  while 
the  Breton  equivalent  also  meant  the  'mane'  of  a  horse,  and  'sole  de 
pore '.     From  a  ran  of  this  origin  a  man's  name  might  be  formed 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    33 

connoting  his  having  rough,  coarse  hair  :  compare  the  Irish  Mongdn 
from  morig  '  mane ',  and  Mong-Jimi  *  white-maned  \  The  other,  ranUi 
would  be  represented  in  Irish  by  such  words  as  rami  '  a  part  or  sliare ', 
rannaire  ^  partista\  and  in  an  Ogam  at  Gortatlea  in  Kerry  Niotta 
Cob-ranor-,  in  genitives,  which  might  be  rendered  '  Nepotis  Partistae ' 
or  'Nepotis  Distributoris '.  The  termination  -eni  genitive  of  -enos 
of  a  suffix  -aw-  (fem.  -end),  or  perhaps  rather  -enio-  {enid\  is  very 
characteristic  of  Goidelic  names,  such  as  Ernene  {Emeneiui,  latinized 
Ferreolus),  Crasen-i  (genitive),  Oissene  {Oisseneus\  Baithene  (Ba'Uhe- 
neiis),  Brenden-us,  Cumene  {Cummeneus) :  see  the  index  to  Reeves's 
Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Columba. 

There  remains  to  be  discussed  the  relative  positions  of  the  two 
words  of  which  the  inscription  consists.     Read  like  the  others  it  is 

VALAVNAL(i) 
RANENI 

which  would  mean  '  (The  grave)  of  the  son  of  Valaunos,  Ranenos '.  To 
Dr.  Danielsson  this  did  not  sound  right,  and  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  should  be  read  upwards  Raneni  Valmina\i)  '  Of  Ranenos  son 
of  Valaunos '.  In  the  case  of  a  similar  epitaph  from  Levo,  to  be  men- 
tioned presently,  he  pleads  the  analogy  of  many  Etruscan  inscrip- 
tions {so  viele  etruskische),  p.  53,  and  suggests  that  in  the  case  of  a  word 
in  concord  with  a  preceding  one,  they  are  more  readily  intelligible 
if  you  leave  out  the  case  ending  of  the  second  name  rather  than  that 
of  the  first,  that  is,  if  you  make  an  omission  at  all.  Thus  treating 
Raneni  in  Dr.  Danielsson's  way,  it  is  to  be  read  first  and  Valaunal{i) 
second,  the  whole  being  taken  to  mean  '  The  (grave)  of  Ranenos,  son 
of  Valaunos ''}  In  this  way  we  are  not  obliged  to  decide  whether  the 
adjective  might  not  come  indifferently  after  or  before  its  noun  in  early 
Celtic  when  its  case  endings  were  still  intact. 

3.  Andergia.  From  Mesocco,  which  is  on  the  right  side  of  the 
Moesa,  there  is  a  diligence  to  S.  Bernardino,  and  another  from  there 
over  the  Spliigen  into  the  Chur  country ;  but  if,  instead  of  proceeding 
higher  on  the  Mesocco  side,  you  cross  the  river,  you  come  in  ten  or 
fifteen  minutes  to  Andergia,  where  the  little  chapel  of  S.  Giuseppe 
contains  the  inscribed  stone  which  I  was  looking  for.  The  line  of 
writing  occupies  the  middle  of  an  oblong  stone  with  a  bevelling  nearly 
all  round  it.  I  made  the  dimensions  to  be  2  feet  10  inches  by  1  foot 
6  inches ;  and  the  material  seems  to  consist  of  a  sort  of  hard,  reddish 

*  He  compares  Brafronos  Nantonicn{os),  where,  however,  one  might  say  that 
there  was  a  lack  of  room  for  finishing  the  second  word.  It  would  be  hard  here 
to  prove  lack  of  room  for  the  final  /. 

VI  2  d3 


34       PROCEEDINGS   OE  THE  BRITISH   ACADEMY 

stone.     My  reading  of  the  epitaph  nearly  coincides  with  that  given 
by  the  Cav.  Giussani  in  his  Tesserete,  p.  24  (Fig.  11),  as  follows  : — 

lOCYI  .yXONOIX:RINIlADI. 

The  peculiar  characters  are  those  for  v  or  u  :  the  two  in  the  middle 
word  are  Y  and  X  inclining  in  opposite  directions.  The  V  in  IOC  VI  is 
like  them  in  having  a  stem  produced  downwards,  though  it  is  not  so 
conspicuous  or  so  oblique.  In  any  case  I  take  the  three  to  be  meant  for 
the  same  character,  v  or  u.  In  the  space  between  the  first  and  second 
name  I  thought  I  detected  the  lower  of  the  two  points  which  I 
expected  there,  but  I  could  not  fix  the  other  or  account  for  the  width 
of  the  gap.  The  R  beginning  the  third  word  is  peculiar,  and  seems 
to  be  the  result  of  the  writing  having  been  tampered  with,  which  is 
certain  in  the  case  of  the  letter  following  the  N  of  this  word  ;  for,  as 
it  stands,  it  makes  a  sort  of  minuscule  h  with  its  perpendicular  some- 
what produced  upwards,  while  the  other  limb  is  extended  downwards 
to  end  almost  in  a  curl  directed  outwards  and  towards  the  reader's 
right  hand.  Below  the  A  there  is  a  line  drawn,  but  scarcely  touching 
the  A.  However,  it  is  perhaps  near  enough  to  have  been  regarded  as 
a  ligature  representing  AL,  so  that  the  whole  would  be  Rinhaldi, 
a  sufficiently  near  approach  to  Rinaldiy  the  Italo-German  name  of 
the  man  locally  supposed  to  be  commemorated  by  the  stone. 

Turning  back  to  the  epitaph  as  a  whole,  one  is  struck  by  the  fact 
that  it  consists  of  three  words,  the  first  of  which  seems  to  be  a  dative 
in  -ui.  The  suggestion  naturally  offers  itself,  that  it  is  parallel  to 
some  of  the  Lugano  instances,  such  as  that  of  Davesco,  reading  Tisiui 
Pivotiahii  pala  (p.  8  above).  So  one  is  led  to  suppose  locui  to  be 
the  dative  of  the  name  of  the  man  commemorated,  and  Utonoiu^ 
another  dative  serving  as  a  qualifying  word  of  some  kind,  and  standing 
for  an  earlier  Utonoiili.  The  explanation  of  the  omission  of  the  final 
i  here,  while  retained  in  locui,  would  probably  be  that  the  latter  being 
shorter  had  undergone  less  weakening  of  the  final  syllable.  Lastly, 
the  original  of  the  third  word,  now  distorted,  may  have  been,  I  take 
it,  synonymous  with  the  word  pala  of  the  Lugano  formula. 

Let  us  now  try  to  attack  the  legend  more  in  detail,  beginning  with 
locui.  The  occurrence  here  of  C  instead  of  K  is  to  be  noted  as  one 
of  the  proofs  of  the  influence  of  the  Roman  alphabet.  Underlying  it, 
however,  one  would  perhaps  be  right  in  postulating  the  methods  of 
North  Etruscan  spelling,  and  in  treating  the  C  as  here  pronounced  C. 
Even  to  fall  back  to  that  extent  on  Etruscan  orthography  is,  how- 
ever, not  obligatory,  as  will  be  seen  immediately.     At  all  events  I 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE  GAUL    35 

regard  locui  as  representing  in  sound  logui,  dative  of  logos,  a  cur- 
tailed name  suggested  probably  by  such  compounds  as  Ver-hi^is^ 
Rigo-vermgus,  and  Veriugo-dummis,  connected  with  an  early  sub- 
stantive iougo-n,  iogo-n,  iugo-n,  in  Welsh  iou,  ieu,  iau '  a  yoke,jiigum\ 
Irish  ughaim  '  harness,  hames,  panniers ',  ughamaim  '  I  accoutre,  I 
harness  or  yoke',  and  kindred  forms  for  which  see  Dinneen's  Irish 
Dtctwnary,  and  compare  Stokes  in  Pick's  Vol.  II,  p.  224.  M .  d'Arbois 
de  Jubainville  interpreted  Veriugu^  (found  written  in  the  dative  case, 
and  with  c,  Veriuco,  as  is  likewise  the  genitive  of  a  related  Ateiouciis, 
C.  I.  /-.,  XII.  1770,  4006)  as  meaning  him  who  has  a  large  yoke. 
Further,  he  says  that  '  Ver-jugo-dumnus  est  le  dieu  remarquable  par  le 
"  tres  grand  joug  "  ou  sont  attaches  les  chevaux  qui  trainent  son  char  \ 
See  his  Noms  Ganlois,  pp.  58-61,  and  note  that  we  have  here  I-atin 
c  for  g  in  Veriuco  and  Ateiouci. 

We  come  next  to  the  second  name  Utonoiu,  which  seems  more 
likely  than  Uxonoiu.  It  has  already  been  suggested  that  it  repre- 
sents an  older  dative  Utonoiui,  and  it  is,  probably,  to  be  analysed 
Uto-nom,  with  its  first  element  uto  to  be  identified  with  the  otu  of  the 
name  Otu-aneuno-s^  of  an  inscription  at  Saintes.  This  element  has 
already  been  mentioned  in  connexion  with  Otiui,  dative  of  Otio-s, 
a  derivative  presumably  of  the  same  origin  :  see  p.  15  above.  The 
remainder  of  the  name  here  in  question,  to  wit,  Noiu,  should  be  the 
dative  of  Noio-s,  and  Noio-s  a  derivative  from  Noo-s,  perhaps  better 
Noo-s  or  Nd-s,  which  we  seem  to  have  in  the  genitive  No-cati  (not 
Duno-cati)  in  an  Irish  Ogam  inscription  from  the  parish  of  Knockane 
in  Kerry,  now  in  the  National  Museum  in  Dublin.  One  of  the  names 
related  to  the  no-  here  in  question,  occurs  in  Med.  Irish  as  Noe,  inter- 
changing with  Gnoe,  so  that  we  get  the  valuable  hint  that  the 
original  form  began  not  with  n  but  with  gn.  Acting  on  that  hint 
one  turns  to  Holder's  Treasury  and  finds  that  he  has  a  feminine  Gnoia 

^  Aneunos  is  already  known,  together  with  its  derivative  Aneunicnos,  both  on 
a  stone  found  at  Genouilly  (Cher),  now  in  the  museum  at  Bourges  ;  see  The 
C.  Inscr.  of  Gaul,  pp.  54,  55,  where  I  have  conjectured  that  the  former  name 
meant '  One  who  greatly  partakes  of  the  nature  of  Esus  '.  Another  deri\ative 
occurs  on  an  ornamental  slab  of  white  marble  found  at  Olonio  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Gera  near  the  northern  end  of  the  Lake  of  Como.  The  stone  measures 
1™  10  by  0"!  38  by  0^  12,  and  reads  :— 

I        O        M 

ANEVNIATES 

V    S    L    M 

It  has  been  published  by  Giussani  in  his  Como  Rhista  for  1908;,  and  it  is  now  in 
the  Civic  Museum  of  that  city,  where  I  saw  it. 

2d  3— 2 


36       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

from  the  vicinity  of  Coridico  in  Istria  (C.  /.  Z,.,  V.  317).     The gno  ^  of 
Gnoia  is  to  be  referred  to  the  same  origin  as  Latin  nosco  '  I  know  \ 

'  Stokes  calls  attention  (Fick,  IF.  116)  to  O'Clery's  Glossary  where  it  has  gno 
explained  as  oirdeirc  '  conspicuous '  {Rev.  Celtique,  IV.  401  (s.  v.  dionn)  and  V.  5) ; 
compare  also  Stokes  in  the  Revue  Celtique,  III.  32,  where  he  says  gno  meant 
•  remarkable',  and  see  his  edition  of  O' Donovan's  Cormac,  pp.  81,86,  where  ^ind 
is  interpreted  to  mean  '  derision ',  at  first  probably  a  reference  to  being  made 
'  conspicuous  '  in  an  unfavourable  sense,  and  gnoe  is  cited  as  meaning  '  anything 
delightful  or  beautiful ',  in  Irish  each  srgda,  but  segda  is  sometimes  found  to  mean 
stately  or  majestic.  In  his  edition  of  Gorman,  July  26,  Stokes  translates 
gnnda  by  '  famous ',  and  refers  it  to  the  same  origin  as  O'Clery's  gno  and 
as  Breton  gnou  '  manifeste,  Evident ' ,  to  which  I  add  the  Welsh  personal  name 
Gnou-an  from  the  (Oxford)  Liber  Landavensis,  p.  180.  But  gnou  will  not  derive 
from  g7i6  unless  this  originally  represented  gnouo-s,  a  supposition  admissible  only 
in  the  case  of  Irish.  For  gnou  and  Gnouan  postulate  gnouo-s,  a  form  probably 
related  to  gno,  while  Irish  gnoe  goes  a  step  further  and  represents  gnou-io-s.  In 
this  group  of  words  the  proper  names  are  specially  instructive,  and  we  have 
gnouio-s  in  Rawlinson  B.  502  as  Gnoe  (fo.  154^,  1.  56,  IGO'^,  1.  29),  and  in  the 
Book  of  Leinster  (347",  370^),  in  the  former  of  which  it  interchanges  with  Noe, 
a  far  better  known  form.  The  name  appears  to  have  been  brought  to  Dyfed 
(Demetia)  by  the  Dessi  who  came  over  in  the  latter  half  of  the  third  century  :  it 
occurs,  for  instance,  in  the  (Oxford)  Liber  Landavensis,  pp.  77,  133,  where  we 
have  a  '  Noe  filius  Arthur ',  but  we  also  find  a  spelling  Nouy.  Other  spellings  of 
the  name  in  that  MS.  are  Nogui  and  Nougui  (with  the  spirant  g  usual  with  y.  in 
Mediaeval  Welsh).  These  forms  with  u  go  to  prove  that  the  name  became  known 
to  the  Welsh  when  the  Irish  pronunciation  was  Noue  and  had  not  yet 
dropped  the  u  ;  that  is  to  say,  if  it  was  a  case  of  borrowing  from  the  Irish, 
which  I  assume.  The  Journal  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Ireland,  for 
1891  (pp.  649-50),  and  \hQ  Archteologia  Camhremis,  for  1892  (pp.  64,  65),  contain 
six  versions  of  the  pedigree  of  the  kings  of  the  Dessi  of  Dyfed  brought  together 
by  me.  Among  them  are  the  following :  Rawlinson  B.  602,  fo.  132*,  1.  37, 
which  has  *  m  Nee  mic  Artuir  mic  Retheoir',  where  Nee  is  probably  an  error  for 
Noe  as  on  folio  128^,  1.  8,  and  152%  11.  47,  55  of  that  MS.  with  Gnoe  as 
already  instanced  ;  Bodleian  Laud  610,  fo.  100*^  '  Noe  mic  Artuir  mic  Petuir ' ; 
two  of  the  Welsh  versions  have  *  Nowy  ap  Arth(en)  ap  Pedyr '  ;  the  British 
Museum  MS.  Harleian  3859  has  '  Nougoy  map  Arthur  map  Petr',  where 
Nougoy  is  apparently  a  mistake  for  NougCy  ;  and  lastly,  Jesus  College  MS.  20 
Yia.'S,'  Nennue.  M.  Arthur.  M.  Peder',  where  Nennue  is  gibberish  for  a  name  which 
elsewhere  in  this  MS.  appears  as  Neuue :  see  the  Cymmrodor,  VIII,  pp.  86  (xii), 
84  (viii).  To  return  to  Gno-ia  we  have  (g)no  prefixed  in  the  genitive  No-cati 
already  mentioned  :  see  my  Ogam-inscribed  Stones  in  the  Dublin  Museum  (Dublin, 
1902),  pp.  26-8.  The  second  element  derives  from  the  stem  catu-  '  a  fight  or 
battle  *  ;  and  the  compound  No-cati  (implying  a  derivative  stem  Gno-catio-s) 
possibly  meant  '  one  who  fights  conspicuously,  remarkably,  famously '.  In 
Rawlinson  B.  502,  fo.  161*,  1.  9,  one  meets  with  a  kindred  genitive  Nu-chada, 
implying  a  nominative  Nu-chad  of  the  u  declension  compounded  of  {g)nn  (for 
{g)no),  and  cath,  cad,  Welsh  cat,  cad  '  battle,  also  a  battalion '.  Irish  cath, 
genitive  catha,  cada  derives  from  early  katu-s,  genitive  hatos  as  in  Iva-cattos  or 
Elii-catos  partly  discussed  in  a  paper  road  by  me  to  the  Academy  in  1903  and 
entitled  Studies  in  Early  Irish  History,  pp.  2-4.  So  Nu-chad  might  be 
interpreted  to  mean  one  who  fights  conspicuously  or  else  one  who  has  a  host  of 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    37 

novi,  notum  for  older  gnosco,  gnoviy  gnotum,  and  as  nobilis,  orij^inally 
gnobilis  '  distinguishable,  known,  eminent,  noble '.  The  related  Celtic 
words  are  many  and  varied,  including  among  others,  Ir.  gnath  'known, 
usual ',  Welsh  gnaut^  gnawd  'known  as  usual  or  customary ',  Ir.  in-gne 
*  inteUigentia\  in-gnaidi  "  intellecUis ''  (Stokes  in  Pick's  vol.  II.  116), 
Yfehh  yngnat,  ynad  'a  judge',  an-yngnad^  an-ynad  'unreasonable, 
ill-tempered  \  Breton  anat  '  connu,  connaissable,  evident,  notoire,  mani- 
feste,  public'',  Welsh  yn  anad  'above  all,  especially"*,  adnabod  (for 
ad-gnad-bod)  '  to  know,  knowledge  ^  Old  Welsh  '  hep  am^nawbot '' 
^ sine  me7ite\  which  would  now  have  been  'heb  am/jofod"',  had  it  been 
in  use  :  compare  Breton  anaout  from  aznaout. 

It  is  needless  to  add  to  the  number  of  these  instances,  as  I  have 
already  given  some  which  may  be  of  use  for  comparison  as  we  go  on. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  we  have  now  the  data  for  guessing  the  import 
of  the  patronymic  Uto-noiu  ;  it  postulates  a  nominative  Uto-noios 
meaning  '  relating  to  Uto-noos,  son  of  Uto-noos,  or  a  member  of  the 
Utonoan  family,  to  which  some  ancestor  called  Utonoos  had  given  his 
name ' ;  and  that  name  may  be  supposed  to  have  signified  '  one  who 
is  to  be  dreaded  on  account  of  his  skill  and  penetrating  intellect", 
all  suggestive  of  a  reputation  coveted  by  the  medicine  men  of  all 
peoples  in  all  ages. 

I  have  no  clear  notion  what  the  third  vocable  was  as  it  was  first  cut, 
possibly  pinisari  or  pinisar,  written  M  h^  |  ^  A  D  I  with  some  kind  of 
P  made  into  R  and  \Z  (  =  «<?)  into  h ,  that  is  h.  Whatever  it  was,  it 
has  been  suggested  that  it  may  have  meant  a  small  plot  of  ground 
or  marked  off  area ;  the  whole  might  accordingly  be  rendered  '  For 
logos  son  of  Uto(g)n6os  a  burial  place '.  He  had  probably  secured 
it  whilst  alive,  sibi  vivo,  as  Latin  inscriptions  occasionally  express  it. 

Before  quitting  this  part  of  the  country  there  is  a  remark  or  two 
which  I  wish  to  make.  Among  other  things  I  may  mention  that 
fruitful  excavations  are  going  on  at  a  place  called  Gudo,  six  kilometres 
below  Bellinzona,  as  you  proceed  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Ticino 
towards  Locarno.  The  finds  are  deposited  at  Bellinzona,  in  a  museum 
in  the  old  castle  of  Monte  Bello,  whither  Dr.  Eligio  Pometta  kindly 
took  me  to  see  them,  but  at  that  time  I  found  nothing  of  inscriptional 
interest.    On  a  little  vase  of  dark  grey  or  bluish  ware  there  was  some 

conspicuous  fighters  under  him.  In  Stokes's  Gorman,  July  30,  we  have  a  N6- 
chaire,  whose  name  is  spelt  No-chure  in  the  Book  of  Leinster,  354«  :  this  would 
seem  to  have  meant  'one  who  is  at  the  head  of  a  famous  host'.  Possibly  we 
have  the  same  element  {g)7io  in  the  name  Nobis,  Novis  which  figures  in  the 
Liber  Landavensis,  pp.  216,  217,  274,  303,  312  :  compare  Biss-  in  the  clan  name 
Ilui  Bissi  in  Rawlinsou  B.  502,  fo.  120'',  1.  15. 


38       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

scratching,  which  I  took  to  be  a  recurrent  V  ornament,  together  with 
some  other  scratchings,  in  which  I  failed  to  recognize  any  certain 
letter.  What  Gudo  may  finally  yield,  it  is  impossible  to  say : 
306  tombs  had  already  been  examined  there,  a  number  not  exceeded 
in  the  district  except  near  Giubiasco,  where  they  are  said  to  have 
been  534.  The  finds  have  been  described  and  illustrated  in  the 
Rivista  Archeologka  (Como,  1911),  in  a  paper  entitled  'La  necropoli 
preromana  di  Gudo ' :  the  author.  Dr.  G.  Baserga,  shows  that  the 
ancient  population  of  this  part  of  Canton  Ticino  was  a  prosperous  and 
wealthy  one,  and  that  the  quantity  of  silver,  amber,  and  coral  which 
they  used,  argues  that  they  lived  near  an  important  trade  route,  which 
he  traces  through  Locarno  on  Lago  Maggiore,  past  Bellinzona  and  up 
the  valley  of  Mesocco,  whence  the  pass  of  St.  Bernardino  was  reached, 
and  at  length  the  Rhine,  a  way  in  fact  leading  from  Italy  to  the  heart 
of  Switzerland  and  Germany  (pp.  4,  52,  124,  et  passim).  This  was 
probably  the  route  which  the  Celts  took  when  they  came  down  to 
Mesocco  and  the  strath  of  the  Ticino.  When  they  settled  there  they 
do  not,  judging  from  the  inscriptions,  appear  to  have  had  close  inter- 
communication with  the  Lugano  district.  For  setting  aside  the 
shorter  and  more  uncertain  of  the  scribbles  on  the  Giubiasco  vessels, 
the  lettering  too  on  the  helmet  as  coming  probably  from  another 
district,  and  the  third  word  of  the  Andergia  inscription  as  one  that 
has  been  tampered  with,  one  can  hardly  say  that  w  hat  is  left  is  written 
in  the  North  Etruscan  alphabet  as  it  appears  around  Lugano.  There 
are  serious  differences,  and  what  mostly  strikes  one  is  the  manifest 
influence  of  Roman  writing  over  that  of  the  Bellinzona  group.  That 
is  all  the  easier  to  explain  if  an  important  commercial  route  from 
Italy  northwards  lay  through  Locarno,  the  Ticino  basin,  and  the 
valley  of  the  Moesa  in  a  southern  corner  of  Canton  Graubiinden. 


Ill 

1.  (1)  RoNDiNETo  in  the  commune  of  Breccia,  near  Como.  In  the 
Civic  Museum  at  Como  various  things  discovered  at  Rondineto  are 
preserved,  and  as  many  as  could  be  identified  were  very  kindly  shown 
to  me  by  the  curator,  the  Rev.  Father  Santo  Monti.  They  are  to  be  seen 
reproduced  in  the  lithographed  plates  of  the  Como  Rivista  Archeo- 
logica  :  see  more  especially  the  numbers  for  1877-9,  1883.  Pauli,  in 
his  no.  ]8,  has  incorporated  the  readings  of  eight  of  them,  which  he 
treated  with  more  or  less  hesitation  as  (a)  .  .  .  akiir  .  . .,  (6)  .  .  .  ouki 
(or  olki)  .  .  .  . ;  (c)  .  .  .  uklk  (ornklk). .  .  . ;  (rZ)  .  .  .  tiu  .  .  .,  more  like 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    39 

uit,  1  should  say ;  (e)  .  .  .  lioiso  ...;(/)...  vas  . .  . ;  {g) .  .  .  ial  .  .  . ; 
(h)  tarise.  This  last  of  Pauli's  I  did  not  succeed  in  seeing;  his 
reading  of .  .  .  lioiso  ...  is  certain  :  it  runs  from  the  right  towards 
the  left.  So  does  . . .  ouki . . .  or  .  . .  olki  .  . .,  the  doubt  attaches  here 
to  the  second  letter :  is  it  Y  or  A,  and  does  it  mean  u  or  I?  Whether 
you  read  towards  the  right  or  the  left  the  question  is  the  same. 
Speaking  of  .  .  .  olki  .  .  .  the  sequence  olJc  sounds  very  Celtic,  witness 
the  Irish  name  Olcdn,  early  Ulcagnos^  genitive  Ulcagni  in  Wales  and 
Cornwall.  Lastly,  .  .  .  lioiso  .  .  .  has  already  been  touched  upon  at 
p.  31  above,  where  Eli-oiso  has  been  suggested. 

(2)  Inside  the  circle  forming  the  bottom  of  a  little  vase,  which  I 
failed  to  identify  with  anything  of  Pauli's,  I  copied,  with  some  hesita- 
tion, a  short  legend  reading  at  first  from  the  right  to  the  left,  as 
follows,  on  a  sort  of  grey  ware  : — 

I1VI1 

That  makes  Piiuii  Aa^  forming  a  boustrophedon  sequence  meaning 
*  Aa  (gives  it)  to  Biua  \  Compare  Pivotialui  and  Pivonei  (pp.  8,  20 
above)  and  the  Bodi-beve  on  the  bilingual  stone  from  Llanwinio, 
Carmarthenshire.  Here  -beve  seems  to  be  the  (Latin)  genitive  feminine, 
of  which  name  we  have  the  dative  feminine  in  Pivai  for  Bivai. 
In  Old  Irish  the  compound  occurs  as  Buaid-beo  (Stokes's  Oengiis, 
Nov.  17,  and  p.  242),  which  may  be  Englished  '  victory-quick,  swift 
to  triumph '.  Lastly,  Aa  would  be  the  nominative  corresponding 
to  the  dative  Aai  in  Aai  pala,  p.  5  above. 

(3)  I  must  add  that  I  noticed  a  biggish  bit  of  red  ware  numbered 
'  Rondineto  372  \  with  a  graffito  which  I  was  unable  to  make  out.  It 
seems  to  run  from  right  to  left,  somewhat  like  this  VYMhM. 
The  third  letter  I  do  not  recognize :  it  somewhat  resembles  h,  but 
the  short  downward  bar  is  obliquely  drawn  without  meeting,  however, 
the  long  perpendicular  of  the  h.  Then  comes  what  seems  to  be  an 
M  conjoint  with  X,  and  that  joins  the  V,  the  last  limb  of  which  is 
gone  where  the  ware  breaks  off.  A  straight  line  forms  the  upper 
boundary  of  the  lettering. 

Such  are  some  of  the  things  found  at  Rondineto.  They  do  not  prove 
rich,  epigraphically  speaking,  but  they  show  nothing  to  discourage 
the  supposition  that  they  are  Celtic.  On  the  contrary  I  have  pointed 
out  two  or  three  things  which,  so  far  as  they  go,  are  favourable  to 
that  conjecture. 

2.  (1)  Villa  del  Soldo  belonging  to  the  Conte  Turati,  and  situated 
near  Alzate-Brianza.     To  get  there  my  daughter  and  I  started  from 


40       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE  BRITISH   ACADEMY 

Como  by  rail  on  the  way  to  Lecco,  but  when  we  had  travelled  about 
ten  miles  we  alighted  at  a  station  called  Brenna-Alzate  and  walked 
to  Alzate,  a  distance  of  about  a  mile,  and  near  that  village  we  entered 
the  grounds  of  the  Soldo.  We  were  shown  over  the  spacious 
gardens  of  the  Conte  Turati,  and  saw  a  grave,  reconstructed  years 
ago,  where  we  expected  to  find  an  inscribed  vase.  The  reconstruction 
was  carried  out  under  the  eye  of  Dr.  Castelfranco  of  Milan,  Inspector 
of  Ancient  Monuments.  We  discovered  that  the  vessel  was  missing,^ 
and  I  have  not  been  able  to  consult  a  copy  of  that  savant's  own 
account  of  the  finds  made  near  the  spot  in  1878.  From  Pauli's 
remarks,  however,  on  his  no.  19,  which  represents  the  inscription,  and 
from  Giussani's  description  in  his  Tesserete,  pp.  24<,  25,  I  find  that  it 
read  from  left  to  right  VIXIH0^>  that  is,  Vitilios,  in  North 
Etruscan  characters,  scratched  on  the  outside  of  the  wall  of  a  cup 
of  reddish  ware.  With  it  were  found,  it  appears,  a  fibula  a  doppio 
vermiglione,  a  bronze  piece  of  money,  and  a  small  silver  coin  of  the 
type  of  the  hemidrachma  of  Marseilles,  having,  on  the  obverse,  a 
barbarous  head  of  Diana  turned  to  the  right  and  a  lion  on  the 
reverse  surmounted  by  the  inscription  RIKO. 

The  next  question  is  what  is  to  be  made  of  the  name  Vitilios.  As 
usual,  more  than  one  identification  is  possible.  The  first  is  with  names 
cited  by  Holder,  such  as  Vitullus,  Vitullius  and  Vitullia,  Vituriga  and 
the  like,  not  to  mention  later  forms,  such  as  Welsh  Guid-gen  and 
Gwydion.  These  imply  an  early  form,  beginning  with  uet- ;  but  it 
may  have  been  vid-^  which  would  give  us  a  still  wider  field  to  choose 
from.  It  is  hardly  worth  our  while  to  discuss  them,  as  we  seem 
to  have  a  clear  case  of  identity  with  a  name  supplied  by  Holder 
ready  made.  This  is  Vintilius  for  Celtic  Vintilio-s,  genitive  Vintili, 
from  Langres  in  France  (C  /.  Z.,  XIII.  5870),  and  Vintelius  from 
St.  Maurice  in  the  Swiss  Canton  of  Valais.  The  suppression  of  the 
11  in  the  spelling  Vitilios  takes  place  in  the  same  way  as  in  the  Latin 
Quintus  which  appears  as  Kuitos  and  in  Quintae  which  appears  as 
Kuites  in  the  well-known  Brionna  inscription,  preserved  at  Novara.  The 
phonological  process  by  which  the  n  would  seem  to  have  been  silenced 
was  the  spending  of  it  in  the  nasalization  of  the  vowel  preceding, 
or  else  in  assimilating  the  nasal  to  the  surd  following  as  in  Goidelic : 

^  The  Count,  who  was  then  at  Milan,  has  kindly  written  to  me  that  the 
inscribed  vessel  had  been  taken  away  for  safety  by  a  member  of  the  family,  but 
that  at  the  moment  he  could  not  tell  me  in  which  of  its  residences  it  had  been 
deposited.  Now  recently  tlie  Count  has  lent  me  Professor  Castelfranco's  paper, 
which  was,  I  find,  publislied  in  the  Bullettino  di  Palctnologia  Italiana  (Auuo  V, 
num.  1  &  2,  1899).     I  cannot  find  the  volume  in  Oxford. 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE  GAUL    41 

perhaps  both  processes  were  combined.  In  any  case  we  have  a  parallel 
spelling  on  Goidelic  ground  in  the  Kynfic  (Glamorgan)  bilingual  where 
Pop  .  .  .  stands  for  Pompeiios,  or  rather  for  the  genitive  Povii)[ei\  and 
the  Latin  vrordfecerunt  inscribed  FECERVTinan  ancient  post-Roman 
epitaph  at  St.  Ninian's  in  Galloway. 

(2)  In  despair  we  turned  to  go  away,  but  it  occurred  to  me  at  the 
gate  to  ask  the  porter's  wife  to  bring  some  water  and  a  rag  to  clean 
the  earthenware  vessels  at  the  grave.  She  did  so,  and  I  copied  the  only 
scribble  I  found,  and  never  gave  it  a  thought  till  now.  On  scrutinizing 
my  scrap-book  I  am  astonished  to  find  that  it  shows  most  of  the  elements 
of  the  name  Vi{n)tilio3  as  C)  n|  |  X  I'  V »  which  probably  means  Vi{n)tilo. 
This  can  hardly  be  accidental,  or  due  to  an  excited  imagination  on 
my  part.  The  scratching  is  very  crude,  and  runs,  be  it  observed,  from 
right  to  left,  and  not  in  the  same  direction  as  the  other.  As  regards 
the  0,  I  ought  to  say  that  I  could  only  see  the  disjointed  sides  of  that 
letter,  somewhat  like  an  open  parenthesis  (  ) ;  but  it  may  possibly  be 
I S,  making  Vitilis.  It  will  have  to  be  looked  up  again  ;  in  fact  I  hope 
that  Signor  Giussani  will  have  it  photographed  and  described  in  his 
Rivista  Archeologica. 

The  final  0,  if  that  proves  to  be  the  correct  reading,  may  represent 
the  ending  of  the  nominative  of  the  o  declension  with  the  s  elided,  that 
is  Vi{7i)tih-s ;  but  it  may  be  the  ending  of  a  nominative  of  the  n  de- 
clension. In  any  case  the  names  Vi(n)tilo  and  Vi(n)tilio-s  belonged,  in  all 
probability,  to  the  same  family,  and  the  latter,  written  as  it  is  towards 
the  right,  is  presumably  of  later  date  than  the  other.  The  origin 
of  these  names  is  obscure,  but  they  may  be  related  to  that  of  '  Mars 
Vintiiis  \  whence  the  place-names  Vence,  and  the  Col  de  Vence  behind 
Nice.  In  a  votive  inscription  at  Hauteville,  in  the  dep.  of  Haute-Savoie, 
the  god  is  styled  Vintiiis  Angiistus;  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Seyssel, 
in  the  dep.  of  Ain,  one  inscription  calls  him  Vintiiis  Augustus  Pollux^ 
and  another  Detis  Vintiu^  Pollux,  whence  another  Vence,  which  there 
becomes  Vens  or  Vance  (C.  /.  Z.,  XII.  3,  2561,  2562).  It  is  difficult  to 
sever  from  the  god's  name  the  Welsh  gwynt^  Breton  guent  '  wind ', 
Latin  ventus,  Eng.  wind :  Irish  has  words  from  the  same  root,  such  as 
feth  '  air,  breeze '.  A  god  identified  with,  or  compared  to,  the  wind, 
may  be  supposed  to  have  had  as  his  characteristics  swiftness,  force, 
and  capricious  destructiveness.  Both  the  names  here  in  question  may 
be  regarded  as  diminutives  of  that  of  the  god. 

(3)  Pauli's  no.  20  gives  bits  of  writing  on  potsherds  found  at 
ALZATE.  He  transcribes  them  as  u,  tu  (towards  the  left),  tu  (towards 
the  right),  and  Kn  n .  They  are,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  of  little  use  for 
identifying  the  language  to  which  they  belonged. 


42       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

3.  CiviGLio,  near  Como,  the  precise  place  being  an  ancient  necropolis 
called  Visigna.  In  1878  the  then  inspector  of  ancient  monuments, 
the  late  Cav.  Vincenzo  Barelli,  discovered  a  tomb  about  1™  20  below 
the  surface  of  the  ground,  containing  six  vases  of  clay  fashioned  with 
the  lathe,  and  among  them  a  beaker  with  a  reversed  cone.  It  was 
made  of  black  earthenware,  varnished  with  transparent  black  stuff, 
and  bearing  a  cross  beneath  the  base  and  two  stags,  also  a  scratched 
inscription  in  the  North  Etruscan  alphabet,  reading  ^Q  N"^,  that  is 
Alios.  The  finds  are  now  in  the  Civic  Museum  at  Como:  see  Giussani''s 
Tesserete,  p.  26. 

Alios  as  a  proper  name  is  difficult  to  explain.  One  is  reminded  of 
the  Irish  verb  alini,  ailim,  oilim  'I  nurse  or  nourish,  I  bring  up  or 
educate '.  If  this  be  its  origin  it  may  mean  either  '  one  who  nourishes, 
a  foster  parent  \  or  '  one  who  is  nursed,  a  foster  child  \  Compare  Alt, 
genitive  Ailt,  in  the  Bk.  of  Leinster,  350^,  from  the  passive  participle 
altos  '  nursed,  nourished,  reared  \  The  name  A  Hill  (ElHl)  or  Oilill 
mentioned  in  my  paper  on  the  C.  Inscriptions  of  Gaul,  p.  77,  would 
seem  a  sort  of  diminutive  of  Alios,  but  the  declension  offers  difficulties.^ 
See  Holder's  list  of  names  ending  in  -ello-s,  -elld,  -illo-s,  -Hid. 

In  point  of  form  there  is  another  possibility  which  is  more  attractive, 
namely,  to  equate  the  word  bodily  with  the  alios  postulated  by  the 
Irish  aile,  later  spelling  eile  '  other ',  of  the  same  origin  as  Latin 
alius.  In  that  case  the  name  would  have  to  be  interpreted  somewhat 
like  Secundus  in  Latin  inscriptions,  such  as  SECVNDVS  F(ecit),  or 
simply  SECVNDVS,  on  pots  and  pans  (C.  /.  L.,  VII.  1334.  50,  1336. 
1007-1016),  not  to  mention  SECVNDILLI  M(anu)  1336.  1003,  the 
ending  of  which  reminds  one  of  OLILLVS.  In  either  case  Alios 
could  only  belong  to  a  Celtic  language  which,  unlike  Gaulish,  did  not 
reduce  Alio  into  alio,  as  in  Allo-brox,  Allo-broges,  Gallo-s  (from  Galh-s) 
and  plural  Galli,  from  gala,  Irish  and  Welsh  gal  '  pain,  passion, 
bravery '.  The  name  Galli  is  said  to  be  found  attested  as  early  as 
almost  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  before  Christ :  see  Holder, 
s.vv.  Galli  and  Gallia.  The  Brythonic  and  Gaulish  word  Gallos,  or 
else  the  Latin  Galium,  was  borrowed  into  Irish  to  yield  Gall,  meaning 

^  In  that  passage  for  the  words '  Ailioll,  which  in  an  older  form  was  Oilill  * 
read  '  Ailill,  which  in  another  form  was  Oilill '.  I  do  not  exactly  know  where 
O'Curry  found  Oi//o// which  he  gives  passim  in  his  Lectures  on  the  MS.  Materials 
of  Ancient  Irish  History,  but  see  Windisch's  Tain  B.  C,  p.  303.  The  Latin 
nominative  OMus  (C.  I.  L.,  XIII.  1670)  excludes  the  i  declension,  while  the 
usual  Irish  forms  Ailill  or  Oilill  postulate  it  ;  but  on  the  other  hand  Ailello 
(Thesaurus  Palaeohibcrnicus ,  II.  263,  265,  286)  is  a  genitive  of  tlie  u  declension. 
It  is,  however,  the  o  declension  that  I  should  have  expected  throughout,  and 
the  Latin  spelling  Olillus  may  have  belonged  to  it  and  not  to  the  u  declension. 


♦the  CELTIC  INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE  GAUL    43 

*  a  Gaul,  later  any  stranger,  Norse  or  English ',  but  the  native  Irish 
form  remained  Gaile,  genitive  Gaili.  See  Windisch's  notes  to  his 
edition  of  the  Tain,  pp.  422,  423,  where  he  cites  Gaile  as  the  equiva- 
lent of  Calatin,  better  Galatin,  a  word  borrowed  by  the  Irish  from  the 
Brythonic  Galatini  postulated  by  the  Welsh  Galedin  in  '  Arllechwedd 
Galedin ',  to  wit,  '  the  Slope  of  Galedin  \  meaning  the  sea-board  of 
England  from  the  Berkshire  Ridgeway  and  the  hills  connected  with  it 
to  the  English  Channel,^  covering  territory  conquered  by  the  Belgae. 
See  in  '  the  lolo  MSS.'  (p.  86),  a  tract  which  lolo  gives  one  to  under- 
stand to  have  been  copied  by  him  from  a  book  of  a  Mr.  Cobb,  of 
Cardiff,  which  is  not  known  to  exist  any  longer. 

There  is  a  third  possible  explanation  which  fits  the  interpretation 
better  than  Irish  aile  *  other "",  namely,  to  suppose  it  to  have  had  the 
sense  of  Welsh  eil^  ail  '  second ',  which  comes  nearer  in  meaning  to 
Latin  Secundus.  In  point  of  form  it  is  more  difficult  to  fit  in :  for 
Welsh  as  a  Brythonic  dialect  had  alio-  reduced  to  alio-  as  in  Gaulish, 
and  in  the  Greek  akko-s  'other'.  Witness  such  compounds  as 
all-tud  *  one  of  another  nation,  an  alien ',  all-waith  '  another  time, 
a  second  year\  To  make  the  kindred  form  eil,  ail  help  to  explain 
Alios  we  should  have  to  suppose  the  latter  to  have  been  pronounced 
Alios  or  AUios,  which  would  give  in  Welsh  eilyd.  Davies's  Welsh- 
Latin  Dictionary  produces  evidence  that  eili/d  meant  '  second  '.  It  is 
possible  that  eil  with  the  same  sense  was  inferred  from  eili/d ;  but  on  the 
whole  I  am  more  inclined  to  think  that  eil  ^  comes  from  a  base  like  the 

^  The  translation  is  given  at  pp.  476,  477,  but  the  translator  met  here  with  an 
am  of  the  use  of  which  he  had  no  notion,  though  it  is  current  in  parts  of  Wales 
to  this  day.  For  instance  his  no.  14  should  run  thus :  '  The  Slope  of  the 
Galatini  from  that  to  the  boundaries  of  Devon  and  with  the  boundaries  of 
Somerset  between  it  and  Argoed  Calchfynydd.' 

^  mi  is  found  placed  in  front  of  proper  names  where  one  would  otherwise 
expect  vab  or  ab  '  son ' :  thus  Morvran  eil  Tegit '  Morvran  son  of  Tegid',  meaning 
as  it  were  '  M.  a  second  Tegid,  or  M.  a  second  form  of  Tegid  '.  Sometimes  the 
words  coalesce  as  in  the  name  of  the  swimmer  in  the  '  Mabinogi  of  Math  ',  Dylan 
Eilton  '  D.  son  of  the  billow ',  also  Dylan  eil  Mor  '  D.  son  of  the  sea '  (Evans's 
Geiriadur,  s.v.  ail ;  Skene's  F.  Anc.  Books  of  Wales,  II.  ('  Taliessin ',  p.  142). 
Another  remarkable  instance  is  Eilewyd  '  a  minstrel',  literally  'a.  second  Ewyd' 
(ibid.  '  Taliessin ',  pp.  131,  145),  Ewyd  or  Euuyd  being  the  Welsh  form  of  Gaulish 
Ogmios  (pronounced  Ogmios  or  Ogmiios),  the  name  of  the  god  of  eloquence  in 
ancient  Gaul ;  see  Holder's  quotation  of  Lucian's  quaint  story  of  the  Gaulish 
Hercules  ;  and  for  the  phonology  of  the  names  see  my  note  in  the  paper 
on  The  Coligny  Calendar,  p.  26.  Similarly  Eilwyon  'a.  minstrel  or  musician' 
is  possibly  to  be  interpreted  as  originally  eil-Wion  'or  a  second  Gwion '  in 
reference  to  the  well  known  magician  of  the  Story  of  Taliessin  :  see  Skene, 
ibid.,  p.  130,  where  Gwion  is  referred  to  by  name,  and  Pughe's  Dictionary,  s.  v. 
Eilwy,  which  is  supplied  as  the  singular  of  Eilwyon  on  the  supposition  that  the 


44       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

all  of  the  Latin  ali-qiiis,  and  old  Latin  ali-%ita  'otherwise',  a  base  distinct 
at  any  rate  from,  but  related  to,  that  of  alios,  Welsh  all-  '  other  \ 

4.  CerNusco  Asinario,  the  name  of  which  is  in  process  of  change 
into  Cernusco  al  Naviglio,  is  a  place  south  of  the  Lago  di  Lecco, 
the  south-east  arm  of  the  Lake  of  Como.  There,  according  to  Pauli, 
a  vessel  (olla)  had  been  found  with  an  inscription  (his  no.  22)  reading 
from  left  to  right  in  the  North  Etruscan  alphabet  Rihtkalos.  His 
no.  23  mentions  an  olla  of  the  same  description  found  in  the  same 
place  and  bearing  another  inscription  reading  in  the  same  direction 
Titcsiuilios.  I  understand  Pauli  to  say  that  these  two  inscriptions 
are  on  two  vessels,  and  I  notice  that  Giussani  has  understood  him  in 
the  same  way  ( Tesserete^  p.  33) ;  but  when  I  went  to  the  Sforzesco 
Museum  at  Milan,  where  I  expected  to  find  those  inscriptions,  I  was 
given  to  understand  that  the  two  are  on  one  and  the  same  vessel,  and 
that  it  is  not  in  the  Sforzesco.  Inquiries  were  made  on  my  behalf, 
but  they  have  so  far  elicited  no  information. 

(1)  I  did  not  learn  that  the  two  inscriptions  stood  in  any  special 
relation  to  one  another :  so  they  have  to  be  taken  separately. 
XlV^IVIHO^,  that  is  Timiuilios,  is  preceded,  according  to 
Pauli,  by  something  which  I  cannot  identify :  it  looks  somewhat  like 
<H,  that  is  ch,  which,  needless  to  say,  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  the 
real  reading,  as  the  whole  would  make  CHTI VSI VILIOS,  with  the 
two  first  letters  Latin,  while  Etruscan  letters  follow.  Discarding  the 
former,  we  have  Tiusiuilios,  which  Holder  produces  in  two  forms  without 
perceiving  that  they  probably  represent  only  a  single  one.  He  gives 
TiuA'iulos  and  s.  v.  Tiu  the  two  words  Tiu  Sivilios,  a  division  which 
is  possibly  correct.  At  all  events,  his  list  shows  a  Tiva  F(ecit) 
from  the  Rheims  Museum  {C.I.L.,  XIII.  10006.  164);  for  Sivilios 
compare  his  Seuvo,  better  perhaps  Seuuo  or  Sevvo,  in  SEVVO 
FECIT,  occurring  in  various  places  in  France;  also  Sivi  implying 
a  nominative  Sivios,  Siviavus  (Siviaus),  or  Siuuiavus,  and  lastly 
Sivella  suggesting  a  masculine  Sivellos  and  a  derivative  Sivell-io-s, 
which  would  practically  fit  here,  as  Siuilio-s  may  represent  Siuell-io-s 
and  mean  *  belonging  to  a  father  (or  family)  of  the  name  of  Siiiillo-s  \ 
The  whole  would  mean  '  Tiu  son  of  Siuillos  \  But  the  Itius  Ivilios 
cited  by  Holder  from  Poggi  would  be  preferable,  if  that  reading  could 
be  established. 

(2)  According  to  Pauli  (no.  22)  the  other  name  reads 

DIXVKP^LO^ 

latter  was  an  -on  plural,  as  Cyndclw  in  tbe  twelfth  century  took  it  be  :  sec  the 
Myvyrian  Archaiology  of  Walen,  J.  220^. 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE  GAUL    45 

That  is  Rikikalos,  which  may  be  supposed  to  stand  either  for  Ritti- 
gallos  or  RHu-galos.  The  former  would  admit  of  being  interpreted 
'  a  courier  Gaul,  a  Gallus  who  was  a  runner '.  Concerning  Ritu 
see  my  remarks  on  PI  TOY  in  The  Celtic  Inscr.  of  Gaul,  pp.  19,  20. 
Both  in  form  and  interpretation  Ritugallo-s  would  argue  an  origin 
in  Gaulish,  not  in  any  Celtic  idiom  more  closely  akin  with  Goidelic. 
On  the  other  hand,  Ritugalo-s  might  be  supposed  to  derive  its  second 
element  direct  from  the  early  Celtic  feminine  gold  '  passion,  valour  \ 
The  compound  as  a  whole  would  probably  have  the  possessive 
sense  of  '  One  who  has  both  the  qualification  of  a  runner  and  the 
prowess  of  a  brave  man '.  In  Goidelic  the  feminine  would  remain 
unchanged,  even  when  the  compound  formed  the  name  of  a  man  and 
not  of  a  woman.  Witness  such  Irish  names  as  Art-gal,  genitive  Art- 
gaile,  similarly  Dun-gal,  Dun-gaile,  and  the  like ;  whereas,  if  we  may 
judge  from  such  instances  as  Aa/3poSaos,  Gaulish  gave  the  feminine 
compound  a  masculine  form  in  the  case  of  a  man.  See  the  notes  on 
Labrodiios  in  the  Academy  paper  on  the  Celtic  Inscr.  of  Gaul,  pp.  32-4. 

5.  Milan,  near  which  was  found  an  earthenware  vessel  with  an 
inscription,  reading  from  right  to  left  the  abbreviation  >l  1 V  X  3  ^ , 
that  is  Setupk.  It  forms  Pauli's  no.  24,  and  in  the  fifties  of  the  last 
century,  when  Mom  m  sen  was  publishing  his  '  Nordetruskische  Alpha- 
bete  '  in  the  Mitteilungen  der  antiquarischen  Gesellschaft  in  Zurich,  the 
earthenware  was  in  the  possession  of  a  Signor  Biondelli,  with  whom 
he  seems  to  have  had  a  correspondence  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the 
lettering.  I  expected  to  find  it  in  the  Sforzesco  Museum  in  Milan, 
but  I  failed  to  discover  any  clue  to  its  whereabouts.  The  collections 
of  antiquities  there  have,  I  am  told,  been  shifted  repeatedly,  and  there 
is  no  adequate  catalogue  to  help  a  search. 

In  point  of  nomenclature  Setupk  adds  nothing  new  except  the 
form  of  the  abbreviation.  For  we  have  it  in  full  on  the  Briona 
stone,  now  at  Novara,  to  wit,  as  Setupokios.  I  may  add  in  passing 
that  on  my  way  back  from  Switzerland  last  April  I  made  a  point  of 
turning  aside  to  visit  Bar-le-Duc  in  order  to  see  the  moulage  of  the 
gold  ring  found  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Thiaucourt  in  the  eighties, 
and  lost  sight  of  since.  Thanks  to  the  kind  help  of  M.  Jules  Baudot, 
I  was  enabled  to  trace  the  cast  to  the  museum  there,  and  to  examine  it. 
The  legend  ends  with  what  appears  to  be  a  man's  name,  Nappisetu, 
in  the  nominative  case,  either  for  Nappisetus  of  the  u  declension  or 
Nappisetu  of  the  n  declension.  The  first  element  in  the  compound 
occurs  in  Neb  (for  older  Nep)  in  Neb  mab  kaO  '  Neb  son  of  Caw  '  in  the 
story  of  Kulhwch  and  Olwen  :  see  Evans's  '  White  Book '  Mabinogion, 
p.  231^  and  the  Oxford '  Red  Book '  edition,  p.  107.    The  Welsh  Neb 


46       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

or  Nep  seems  to  find  its  equivalent  in  the  necJi  of  the  Irish  Nechadan^ 
gen.  Nechadain,  Bk.  of  Leinster,  369®.  Some  account  of  the  inscrip- 
tion will  be  found  in  my  paper  on  the  C.  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy, 
pp.  57-9 :  the  preferable  rendering  seems  to  be  that  of  Stokes — 
'  Nappisetu  (gave  this)  to  Adiantunnena  (daughter)  of  Exvertinios  \ 

6.  Briona,  near  Novara.  The  stone  was  found  in  cutting  down  a 
wood  on  land  belonging  to  Briona  ;  it  is  now  built  into  the  wall  of  a 
cloistered  court  of  the  Cathedral  at  Novara,  with  a  goodly  collection 
of  other  inscriptions.  The  surface  measures  1™  26  by  0°^  90,  and  the 
material  of  the  stone  is  said  to  be  gneiss.  The  inscription 
forms  Pauli's  no.  25,  and  an  account  of  it  was  printed  in  my  paper 
on  The  Celtic  Inscr:  of  France  and  Italy,  pp.  59-65.  I  went  to  see 
it  again  last  April,  and  I  think  that  I  can  now  improve  on  my  former 
reading  at  two  points  in  the  text.     My  last  version  is  as  follows : — 

XIjKO^XOVXIOV^.V-. 


7^    X 

•77     -77 


o 

X 

"V7 


X 

< 


•n 

•n 
U 
m 
< 

m 

o 


m 

CO 

w 

O 
X 


177 

X 

< 

o 

O 

CO 


■77 

T 
O 

O 

o 
o 


o 
S^  ^  X  "^ 

5J     <    -77     "77 
^    —    -7     7^ 

X  X  o  < 
qO   X  X 

-  o 

7^ 

m 


OCOQOViOiOT*'-OOW 


Now  as  to  the  top  line,  I  am  no  longer  inclined  to  think  any  letter 
or  letters  lost  to  the  left  of  the  X  ;  so  I  read  as  before  to  the 
second  O  (inclusive)  of  TOVXIO,  but  then  what  I  next  find  is  V^, 
that  is  V  S,  followed  by  a  point  with  an  accidental  scratch  proceeding 
from  it  upwards,  somewhat  like  this  \  slanting  towards  the  left. 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE  GAUL    47 

Then  comes  a  V  which,  as  it  stands,  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
closed  at  the  bottom  ;  and  the  last  traces  of  a  letter  suggested  to  me 
a  broken  I ,  after  which  we  come  to  the  breakage ;  but  the  I  is,  I  fear, 
too  doubtful  to  count  upon. 

The  other  time  I  guessed  the  first  downward  line  to  begin  with 
I  h^  ^  of  which  the  N  and  the  A  stand ;  but  the  I  and  the  N  occur  on 
a  spot  which  it  was  difficult  to  cut  on  account  of  the  spar  embedded 
there ;  and,  after  careful  scrutiny,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  first  letter  is  not  I  but  an  0  with  rather  an  untidy  outline, 
especially  on  the  right  side,  due  of  course  to  the  spar  which  interfered 
with  the  punching,  as  it  did  also  in  the  case  of  the  N.  All  three 
letters  are  near  the  edge  of  the  stone,  but  the  original  edge  is  there 
till  you  pass  beyond  the  O,  and  get  to  the  beginning  of  the  breakage 
at  the  right-hand  top  corner  of  the  stone.  The  N  of  O  N  A  stands 
opposite  the  X  beginning  the  second  downward  line ;  so  the  O 
beginning  the  first  line,  stands  somewhat  nearer  the  fourth  wheel 
than  the  X  of  the  second  line  does. 

There  is  nothing  remarkable  about  the  lettering,  except  the  variety 
of  forms  of  the  symbol  for  S,  which  is  practically  either  that  or  2.  It 
is  always  prolonged  as  if  the  hooks  had  been  straightened  out,  or  else 
consists  of  three  straight  lines,  $,  also  reversed  into  ^,  liable  to 
appear  as  a  sigma  wriggle  ^,  hard  to  distinguish  in  some  inscriptions 
from  a  rough  kind  of  I.  There  is  in  line  8  an  instance  of  the 
symbol  ^,  which  Pauli  transliterated  as  s;  but  in  our  inscriptions 
it  does  not  seem  to  indicate  any  sound  other  than  that  of  the 
ordinary  s. 

The  names  and  the  spelling  call  for  some  remarks :  in  the  first 
place  I  am  inclined  to  treat  the  first  name  as  Tagos,  as  in  Ito-tagos 
and  Prasu-tagos  mentioned  in  my  other  paper,  rather  than  Dagos 
'  good ' :  compare  the  b  on  p.  52  below.  Tontious  has  ou  for  the  u  sound 
in  its  second  syllable,  as  in  inscriptions  written  in  Greek  characters  ; 
but  what  about  the  previous  ou  ?  According  to  the  V'aison  inscrip- 
tion (loc.  cit.  p.  13,  Avignon  1),  the  word  was  toovtiovs^  that  is  toutius. 
So  one  gathers  that  there  is  a  blunder  in  the  Briona  spelling,  or  else 
a  different  pronunciation  implied.  What  the  term  exactly  meant  is 
not  certain,  but  Stokes  renders  it  magistrate.  What  followed  it 
is  impossible  to  make  out :  it  seems  to  begin  with  V,  but  what 
word  it  began  one  cannot  tell.  If  my  old  suggestion  that  the  four 
circles  mean  chariot  wheels  should  prove  tenable,  one  would  naturally 
guess  that  the  v  word  was  the  name  of  a  second  person,  say  wife, 
son,  or  brother,  interred  with  the  great  man  commemorated  in  the 
first  place. 


48       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

The  first  of  the  downward  lines  apparently  begins  with  ON  A,  which 
occurs  in  ONNA-KoYI  'and  Onna's '  in  a  Cavaillon  inscription  where 
Onna  is  a  genitive  feminine  for  an  earlier  Onnas  (loc.  cit.,  pp.  9-11). 
But  here  On{n)a  is  probably  to  be  taken  as  forming  a  hybrid  compound 
with  KVITE$,  that  is  to  say  Kuintes,  the  later  genitive  singular 
feminine  of  Quinta  treated  as  Celtic^  the  whole  name  of  the  woman 
being  On{n)a-kuinta.  As  Quinta  was  declined  in  a  Celtic  way  it 
seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  Celtic,  so  that  the  composition  with 
a  real  Celtic  vocable,  or  one  held  to  be  such,  can  have  presented  no 
difficulty.  In  my  other  paper  I  took  asoioi  to  mean  grandsons,  but 
I  am  now  inclined  to  regard  '  sons '  as  the  more  exact  meaning.  Then 
we  have  at  the  end  the  word  K  E  N I ,  which,  if  Jc  here  does  not  mean  ^, 
might  be  compared  with  Irish  cenel '  Geschlecht  \  Welsh  cenetl,  Modern 
cenedl  '  race,  nation,  kind,  gender ',  Cornish  kinethel  glossing  Latin 
generatio.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  keni  is  to  be  interpreted  as  geni^  it 
would  recall  the  Old  Irish  gein  '  begettal,  procreation,  birth  \  What 
we  want  is  a  dative  or  instrumental  in  i.  If  we  have  such  a  case  in 
heni  or  geni,  the  rendering  of  the  first  and  second  downward  lines  will 
be — 'On(n)aquinta"'s  sons,  offspring  of  Dan(n)otalos"',  that  is,  in  point  of 
generation  =  begettal,  procreation,  Erzetigung.  The  lady  had  sons  by 
two  fathers,  and  the  first  set  were  Dan{n)otalicnoi,  that  is,  each  was 
a  'little  Dannotalos ',  an  edition,  so  to  say,  of  Dannotalos  through  his 
having  begotten  him.  For,  etymologically  speaking,  a  Dannotali-cno-s 
is  a  diminutive  of  Dannotalos.  In  Irish  -i-cno-  has  been  reduced  to 
-7w,  and  -i-cn-io-  to  -7/ie,  as  in  Fechin  and  Fechme,  forms  of  the  name 
of  St.  Fechin  of  Fore  :  -in  is  a  very  living  termination  in  Modern 
Irish,  and  therefore  in  Anglo-Irish  likewise.  It  is  remarkable  that 
gein  is  the  word  used  in  reference  to  the  births  of  Etdin  in  the 
Book  of  the  Dun,  fo.  129*  (to  be  also  found  printed  in  Windisch's 
Irische  Texte^  p.  131),  as  follows: — '  Di  bliadain  dec  or  mili  tra  a 

'  There  is  a  difficulty  as  to  the  declension  of  this  word,  which  is  feminine  in 
Modern  Irish  :  see  Dinueen's  Irish  Dictionary,  where  he  gives  it  the  two  forms 
gein  and  gin,  genitive  ginc,  fem.,  and  the  meanings  of  '  offspring,  child  ;  concep- 
tion ;  embryo  ;  a  swan '.  The  feminine  gender  can  readily  be  explained  from 
the  ancient  forms,  though  they  were  neuter,  as  will  be  seen  on  consulting 
Pedersen's  Vergleichende  Grammatik  dcr  keltitichen  Sjrrachen,  II.  112,  Tlnirneysen, 
I.  205,  and  Ascoli's  Codice  Irlandese  delt  Ambrosiana,  II,  p.  cccclv.  The  chief  cases 
occurring  are  nom.  and  ace.  gein,  genitive  gene,  geine,  dative  genim,  geinim.  Later 
instances  of  the  dative  have  been  kindly  given  me  by  Prof.  Kuno  Meyer  in 
the  forms  geinihh  and  geiniv.  It  is  possible  in  the  case  of  keni  =  geni  that  an 
early  confusion  of  declension  had  taken  place  with  the  geno-s,  genitive  geni,  of 
compound  names  such  as  Cmnulo-geno-n  '  offspring  of  Camulos ',  and  Welsh 
Moriai  from  Mori-geno-a  '  sou  of  the  sea '.  The  genitive  and  locative  must  have 
both  been  geni  as  gcnos  belonged  to  the  o  declension. 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    49 

gein  tuissech  Etaini  o  Ailill  cosangem  ndedenach  o  Etur'',  which  may 
be  rendered — 'There  were,  then,  one  thousand  and  twelve  years  from 
the  first  begetting  of  Etdin  through  Ailill  to  the  last  begetting  (of 
her)  through  Etar.'  This,  though  hardly  in  harmony  with  certain 
features  of  the  story  of  Etain,  as  we  have  it,  sounds  characteristic 
of  peoples,  which,  like  the  other  nations  of  Aryan  origin,  reckoned 
their  descent  through  the  father  rather  than  through  the  mother. 

The  second  and  third  lines  read  Kuitos  and  LeJcatos,  which  are 
Quintus  and  Legatus  borrowed  from  Latin,  but  whether  they  repre- 
sented one  or  two  persons  it  is  not  easy  to  tell ;  in  other  terms,  was 
Legates  a  man's  name  or  simply  a  common  noun  ?  Stokes  treated  the 
two  words  as  meaning  *  Quintos  the  legate  \  The  non-appearance  of 
the  n  of  Quintos  in  the  spelling  has  already  been  noticed  on  pp.  40,  48 
above.  Line  5  consists  of  AnokopoJcios,  which  seems  to  represent 
Andocohogios,  but  it  has  usually  been  treated  asA7idocombogios,  supposed 
to  be  established  by  coins  of  the  Carnutes  of  ancient  France  and  Caesar's 
text  II.  3. 1.  But  the  longest  spelling  supplied  by  the  coins  seems  to 
be  ANDOCOMBO,  while  as  to  Caesar,  Andecomhogium  is  adopted  by 
Holder  and  Andebrog'mm  by  Meusel.  Evans's  Coiiis  of  the  ancient 
Britons,  pp.  216-20,  pi.  V.  4-6,  yields  only  ANDOCO,  so  the  author 
suggests  Andocomius.  Compare,  however,  the  Latin  genitives  Ver- 
co\iii\hogionis  and  Vercomhogi  from  Duna  Bogdany  in  Hungary  and 
St.  Johann  am  Pressen  near  Huttenberg  {C.I.L.,  III.  4732,  13389, 
15205').  These  forms  start  with  ^Combogio-s  (also  ^Comhoio-s),  which 
is  partly  derived  from  *bogio-s,  and  that  is  akin  with  a  simpler  form 
*bdgdy  fem.,  whence  Irish  bag,  fem.,  *  battle '  and  bdgim  'I  contend'.  So 
Combogio-s  probably  meant  one  who  was  '  a  brave  combatant '.  The 
meaning  of  ando-  or  ayide-  is  not  ascertained,  but  Stokes  guessed  it  to 
have  meant '  against ' ;  thus  Ando-combogios  may  perhaps  have  signified 
an  'opposing  champion'.  But  here  one  is  more  interested  in  the  spelling; 
for  according  to  the  analogy  of  our  inscriptions  in  the  North  Etruscan 
alphabet,  with  n  for  nn  =  nd,  the  spelling  to  be  expected  should  have 
been  Anokomokios.  If  the  inscriber  has  not  made  a  slip  Anokopokios 
represents  Andocobogios,  with  co-  as  the  prefix  which  is  usually  com-. 
The  spelling  of  the  next  name  Setu-pokios  offers  no  difficulty  as  it 
seems  to  represent  Setji-bogios,  with  setti,  which  is  related  probably  to 
Ir.  sith  « long ',  used  as  an  intensive  prefix  (Stokes  in  Fick,  II.  294) ; 
so  Setu-bogios  should  mean  'Ever-combating,  long  in  the  conflict' 
— or  the  like;  and  we  seem  to  have  it  in  Nappisetu,  for  which 
see  p.  45:  see  also  nom.  Setiis,  genitive  Seti,  cited  by  Holder, 
who  fails  to  convince  us  when  he  makes  it  a  Gaulish  pronunciation 
of  Latin  Sextus. 

VI  2  u  4 


50       PROCEEDINGS    OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

As  regards  line  7,  I  am  inclined  to  stand  by  my  suggestion  that 
Esanelioti  is  to  be  regarded  as  representing  Essandekotti,  for  Ec- 
sandecottii^  not  the  genitive  singular  of  the  father''s  name  Essande- 
cottos,  but  the  nominative  plural  meaning  Essandecottians,  in  the 
sense  of  sons  of  Essandecottos,  which  in  spite  of  the  -oi  of  Dan{n)o~ 
talicnoi,  yields  us  a  parallel  to  it  in  point  of  syntax.  Then  we 
come  to  AnareviseoSf  which  I  am  now  convinced  should  be  left  as 
Anaj-eviseos  or,  perhaps,  Anarevisseos,  with  the  prefix  an  usually 
meaning  in  personal  names  *  very ',  as  in  Anareltarios  :  see  Danielsson, 
p.  22,  where  he  corrects  Holder"'s  Anarehartoi.  Are-lcarto-s  would 
probably  mean  'strong,  powerful,  mighty*",  and  An-areJcartos  ' very 
powerful '.  So  Aii-arevisseos  probably  meant  '  very  wise  or  very 
highly  possessed  of  knowledge  \  Lastly,  Tanotalos  is  well  known  to 
stand  for  Dannotalo-s,  of  which  the  etymological  meaning  is  un- 
certain, though  the  late  M.  d'Arbois  de  Jubainville  interpreted  it  as 
'  front  hardi.' 

The  whole  inscription  may  be  rendered  thus :  '  Tagos  the  Magis- 
trate (and)  V  .  .  . :  On(n)aquinta's  sons,  begotten  of  Dan(n)otalos, 
(to  wit)  Quintos  the  Legate,  Andocobogios,  (and)  Setubogios,  (also 
her)  sons  by  Ecsandecottos,  (to  wit),  Anarevisseos,  (and)  Dan(n)otalos, 
built  a  cairn  over  them.' 

7.  Levo,  in  Chignolo  Verbano,  on  the  hill  side  behind  Stresa,  on 
the  western  side  of  Lago  Maggiore.  Here  a  group  of  five  inscriptions 
were  discovered  in  the  course  of  clearing  room  for  the  foundations  of 
the  small  Hotel  Levo  in  the  year  1887.  They  were  on  tombstones, 
two  in  Latin  and  three  in  Celtic,  with  only  one  commemorating  a  man. 
Three  of  the  stones  have  been  acquired  by  the  museum  at  Turin  ;  the 
other  two  are  still  at  Levo,  where  they  stand  fastened  to  the  southern 
wall  of  the  building  to  which  I  have  referred,  and  to  which  the  term 
hotel  seems  to  be  still  applied.  To  get  to  Levo,  the  least  trouble- 
some way  is  to  take  the  electric  train  which  goes  up  the  Mottarone 
from  Stresa  and  step  out  at  the  station  called  Ginese-Levo.  You 
then  descend  into  a  level  road,  which  you  follow  in  a  northern  direction 
for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  You  overlook  the  lake,  together  with 
the  Borromean  Isles,  and  the  view  the  whole  time  is  a  dream  of  beauty. 
At  the  end  of  the  short  walk  you  are  at  I>evo,  which  consists  of  some 
half-dozen  houses.  You  ask  for  the  so-called  hotel,  which  is  a  some- 
what bigger  building  than  the  others,  though  in  April  it  presented 
the  appearance  of  a  deserted  public-house. 

(1)  The  first  stone,  still  at  Levo,  has  its  top  rounded,  and  the 
dimensions  of  its  surface  are  1^  18  by  1°*  40,  as  given  by  Ferrero  in 
the  Atti  delta  Societd  di  Archeologia  e  Belle  Art'i  per  la  Provincia  di 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    51 

Torino^  VII.   56-60.      The  inscription  consists   of  two   short  lines, 
reading  across  the  face  of  the  stone  from  left  to  right  as  follows  : — 


N_5_M_N 
ESOrNlQ 

That  is  Namu  Esopnio,  with  only  two,  or  at  most  three,  of  the  letters 
of  the  Etruscan  type,  namely,  the  A,  the  P,  and  in  some  degree  the  E. 
The  V  has  its  second  line  nearly  vertical  and  parallel  with  the  edge 
to  which  it  is  close.  Both  the  lines  are  bounded  by  straight  grooves 
as  on  so  many  others  of  these  inscribed  stones. 

The  name  Namu  is  also  found  as  Namo,  and  among  the  instances 
cited  by  Holder  is  its  dative  Namuni,  from  Bieno,  in  the  same  region. 
That  is,  it  is  of  the  n  declension  and  common  gender,  but  here  it  is 
a  man's  name,  derived  from  a  simpler  form  namo-s  or  Namo-s,  which 
is  possibly  to  be  identified  with  Welsh  naf,  applied  in  Mod.  Welsh 
to  the  Almighty,  but  supposed  to  mean  '  a  lord,  domhms ',  and 
possibly  of  the  same  origin  as  Greek  I'ejaco  'I  deal  out,  distribute, 
dispense '.  In  that  case  such  a  name  as  Nammo  can  hardly  be  connected 
with  Namu.  The  other  vocable,  Esopnio  stands  for  an  oXder  Esopmo-s= 
Ecsobnio-s  from  Ecs-obno-s,  which  meant  '  without  fear,  sans  peur  \  in 
Old  Irish  es-omun,  Welsh  eh-ofyn^  whence  the  dialectical  forms  ech-oriy 
e-on,  ewn.  The  simple  noun  was  obno-,  in  Ir.  omun,  Welsh  qfn  'fear\ 
The  whole  meant  'Namuson  of  Ecsobnos',  and  herewe  have  the  termina- 
tion -io-s,  and  not  the  -dlo-s  on  one  of  these  five  stones  and  usual  in  the 
Lugano  district.  For  other  instances  of  the  patronymic  see  Holder, 
s.vv.  Exobnus,  Exsobnus,  Exsonius.  Lastly,  an  article  made  of  iron 
was  found  in  the  grave,  to  wit,  the  iron  head  of  a  lance. 

(2)  Another   of  the  Levo  stones,  now  in  the  museum  at  Turin, 

reads  across  the  face  of  the  slab  near  the  top  from  left  to  right,  but 

upside  down.     It  measures  2°^  20  by  0™  60.     The  only  reason  for 

cutting  the  letters  upside  down  seems  to  be  that  the  inscriber  found 

it  more  convenient  when  the  stone  was  lying  on 

the  floor  to  face  it  from  behind  the  narrower  end 

which  was  going  to  be  the  top  when  the    stone 

had  been  fixed  in  the  ground.     It  was  too  long 

for  him  to  work  from  the  wider  end  unless  he  went 

on  his  knees  on  the  stone,  or  else  did  his  inscribing 

seated  beside  the  stone.    Probably  unskilled  in  the 

work,  he  preferred  to  take  the  position  near  the 

narrow  end,  forgetting  that  his  legend  would  be 

upside  down,  as  in  the  margin.    Where  the  legend 

was  placed  the  surface  had  been  slightly  smoothed, 

2  D  4—2 


N  VOM'i 


52       PROCEEDINGS    OF   THE    BRITISH    ACADEMY 

but  a  little  distance  lower  it  was  left  in  a  rough  unlevelled  state,  as 
that  part  of  the  stone  was  to  be  hidden  in  the  ground. 

The  letters  make  Atekua  Asoun  .  .  of  which  the  last  letter  remaining 
seemed  to  me  to  make  an  M  with  the  lower  half  of  its  last  limb  gone 
owing  to  a  slight  damage  to  which  the  edge  had  been  subjected  some 
time  or  other.  However  I  should  not  know  what  to  make  of  an  m,  and 
I  prefer  thinking,  on  the  whole,  that  Danielsson  (loc.  cit.,  p.  27)  is 
right  in  treating  the  imperfect  lettering  as  meant  for  NI,  as  suggested 
by  Ferrero  in  the  Atti  mentioned  above,  pp.  56  et  seq.  Both  times 
the  u  is  given  the  form  A,  or  V  upside  down,  as  in  the  Etruscan 
alphabet  of  Este,  and  in  some  inscriptions  from  Gurina  in  Obergail- 
thal  in  Carinthia  :  see  Pauli,  pp.  51-3,  and  nos.  92,  93.  There  is 
one  other  point  to  be  mentioned  here,  namely,  that  the  shape  of  the 
initial  A  of  the  second  line  reminds  one  decidedly  of  the  first  A  of 
the  Briona  inscription,  p.  46  above,  that  is  the  b  of  Tagos^  resembling 
a  Roman  F  upside  down. 

We  have  the  name  Atelcua  written  ATI  ICVA  in  the  finds  at  Orna- 
vasso,  p.  60  below.  It  is  the  Celtic  ^'-form  corresponding  to  thejtJ-Celtic, 
that  is  Gaulish,  Atepa,  of  which  Holder  cites  two  instances.  The 
corresponding  masculine  should  be  Atepo-s,  of  which  we  have  evidence 
in  the  derivatives  Atepius,  Atepilla,  Atepilos,  also  shortened  Atpillos, 
Atpilos ;  but  Atepos  would  seem  to  have  given  way  to  Atepo  of  the 
n  declension  which  is  found  in  the  Latin  genitive  as  Ateponis,  dative 
Ateponi:  see  Holder's  instances.  They  are  of  a  hypocoristic  origin, 
based  on  such  compounds  as  Atepomdros  and  Atepor'ix.  We  come 
now  to  the  patronymic,  which,  if  we  follow  Ferrero  and  Danielsson, 
must  be  treated  as  Asouni  and  regarded  as  all  that  was  written,  but 
it  is  highly  probable  that  the  whole  word  was  Awimia^  a  feminine 
adjective  qualifying  Atekua.  The  leaving  out  of  the  final  a  occurs 
also  in  the  next  inscription  to  be  mentioned,  and  we  may  compare 
Valaunal  for  Valaunali  on  the  Mesocco  stone,  p.  32  above.  In  ASounia 
the  syllable  as  may  represent,  according  to  the  analogy  of  others  of 
these  inscriptions,  a  fuller  writing  aks^  acs,  or  ax,  and  the  patronymic 
would  have  been  Axiounia,  meaning  the  '  Axiounian  or  daughter  of 
Axiounos',  a  name  which  occurs  as  a  Latin  dative  Axiouno  in  a  Nimes 
inscription  {C.I.L.,  XII.  3215).  Our  instance  is  shortened  one 
syllable,  as  is  the  case  with  a  kindred  form  on  a  Latin  monument  at 
Caluso,  between  Turin  and  Ivrea,  which  yields  the  dative  masculine 
Asonio  and  the  dative  feminine  Asoniae  thrice  :  see  C.  I.  L.,  V.  6902, 
and  Danielsson,  loc.  cit.,  p.  28. 

This  Levo  legend  means  nothing  more  or  less  than  this  :  '  Atekua 
daughter  of  Asounos'',  for  an  earlier  Axiounos. 


THE  CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    53 

(3)  The  next  Levo  stone  is  also  in  the  Antiquarian  Museum  at 
Turin,  and  measures  l""  25  by  0™  30.  It  reads  from  right  to  left,  with 
the  M  upside  down,  but  not  disjointed,  as  follows : — 


>I1  K  V  X 
^>JIWI0>I 


That  is  Koimila  Tunal ;  for  Danielsson  (p.  29)  is  certainly  right  in 
reading  upwards,  which  he  often  finds  to  be  necessary  in  Etruscan 
inscriptions  :  see  the  Mesocco  stone,  p.  33  above.  But  I  cannot 
follow  him  when  he  divides  the  whole  into  Koimi  Latunal(i) :  I  prefer 
abiding  by  the  inscriber's  division  of  the  words,  and  reading  in  the 
nominative  case,  Koimila  Tunal{a).  From  an  adjective  koimo-s  Irish 
got  its  old  form  coijn,  cdem  '  pretty,  lovely ',  in  Mod.  spelling,  caomh 
'  mild,  gentle,  fair ',  Welsh  ai  '  dear ',  Cornish  cufy  cueff,  Breton  cufft 
cunff',  kith.  The  word  enters  frequently  into  the  composition  of 
proper  names  of  persons,  especially  in  Cornish  and  Breton  ;  also  in 
Irish,  which  has,  for  instance,  a  Coemell,  genitive  Caimill  (Book  of 
Leinster,  fo.  350*,  370^).  This  word  represents  an  early  Coimillo-s, 
Coimilli,  and  our  Coimila  stands  for  Coimilla  with  //,  and  in  fact  it 
occurs  exactly  in  a  more  common  Irish  feminine  Coimell  (fo.  312), 
Coemell  (fo.  372^).  In  the  latter  place  we  have  a  whole  group  of  '  lovely 
ones ',  including  Coemell  and  her  son  Coemgen,  that  is  St.  Kevin  of 
Glendalough :  compare  Stokes's  Oengxis,  pp.  144, 145  (note  to  June  3). 
We  come  now  to  Tnnal,  which  I  should  complete  as  Tunala, 
standing  perhaps  for  Dunnald.  The  whole  would  mean  '  Coimilla, 
daughter  of  Dun(n)os ',  and  the  latter  name  should  be  identical  with 
the  Dunno-s  implied  by  Dunniits,  on  which  see  Holder,  I.  1374. 
Compare  the  (Latin)  genitive  Dunnonis  in  an  inscription  with  Snricae 
Dunnonis  f[iliae)  found  at  Ca^telseprio,  hard  by  Milan  (C.  /.  /,.,  V^ 
5618),  and  a  Dunonis  in  one  reading  C.  Juncus  Diinonis  J\ilius)  from 
Valperga,  which  drains  into  the  Oreo  that  joins  the  Po  near  Chivasso 
(ib.  6935) :  the  nn  is  probably  right  in  these  forms  with  u.  There 
are  others  Avith  o,  such  as  Donnos,  appearing  in  Latin  as  Donnns, 
genitive  Donni,  as  on  the  Segusian  Arch  at  Susa  (C  /.  Z,.,  V.  7231). 
Compare  regis  Donni  J[ilius),  dating  from  the  end  of  the  first 
century  b.  c,  and  others  from  Como  and  Modena,  not  to  mention  the 
Donmis  of  Gaulish  silver  coins.  Here  may  also  be  mentioned  a  Latin 
genitive  Dononis  in  an  inscription  with  Magiomarus  Dononis  f{iUus) 
found  at  Diexerberg,  near  Volkermarkt,  in  Carinthia  (C.I.L.^  III. 
11579):  see  these  and  allied  names  in  Holder's  first  volume.  It  is 
not  improbable  that  the  name  was  one  and  the  same,  whether  written 
with  n  or  o,  ?i  or  ?ui. 


54       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

This  inscription,  as  Danielsson  (loc.  cit.,  p.  31)  clearly  saw,  is 
parallel  to  the  Mesocco  one,  both  in  reading  upwards  and  in  having 
the  vowel  of  the  case  ending  of  the  patronymic  left  out,  thus : — 


2.  Valaunal(i) 
1.  Raneni 


2.  Tunal(a) 
1.  Koimila 


VECA 

ATBITI 

F 


5J-*;}:  The  Levo  group  contains,  besides  the  three  Celtic  inscriptions 
discussed  already,  two  in  Latin,  with  Celtic  names  and  the  same 
construction  as  the  three  purely  Celtic  ones.  The  first  measures 
1™  10  by  I'^SO,  and  is  still  at  Levo,  where  it  is  fastened  to  the  wall 
of  the  hotel.  It  reads  as  in  the  margin,  Veca  Atbiti 
F{Uia),  which  had  it  been  in  Celtic  would  have 
probably  been  Veca  Athitia  or  else  Vcca  Athitala. 
Had  the  Latin,  on  the  other  hand,  been  the  original 
formula,  we  should  probably  have  had  it  adopted  in 
the  foregoing  inscriptions,  with  a  Celtic  word  for  son 
or  daughter  inserted.  That  is  to  say,  the  original  formula  was  Celtic 
and  the  Latin  version  was  the  translation,  which  had  to  have  recourse 
to  the  word  Jilius  or  Jil'ia  as  the  case  might  be.  Altogether  the  Latin 
proves  that  the  foregoing  translation  of  the  Celtic  formula  here  in 
question  is  in  the  main  correct. 

Of  the  names  in  this  epitaph,  the  first,  Veca,  is  the  feminine 
corresponding  to  the  (Latin)  nominative  Vecus,  of  which  the  genitive 
Veci  occurs  in  '  Messava  Veci  f(ilia)  Uxor '  in  an  inscription  from 
Bovegno  in  the  Val  Trompia,  which  drains  south  towards  Brescia 
{C.I.L.,  V.  4910):  compare  the  potter''s  stamp  Veco-rix  {C.I.L., 
XIII.  10010.  1990)  now  at  Rheims.  There  are  a  number  of  related 
forms,  the  simplest  of  which  was  vix  {=  vic-s),  genitive  *ric-05,  plural 
nom.  vic-es.  It  has  been  guessed  that  this  is  related  to  Irish  Jich  '  a 
battle,  a  fight '  and  jicliim  '  I  fight ',  also  to  Latin  mnco  '  I  conquer ', 
and  per-vicax  '  stubborn,  firm ',  so  the  meaning  to  be  attached  to  vix 
is  probably  that  of  '  warrior,  conqueror  '.  In  Irish  the  word  occurs 
in  the  genitive  as  vic-as,  for  common  Celtic  vic-os,  also  as  vvecc-as 
( =  vech-os),  in  compound  names  in  Ogam  such  as  Bora-vvecc-,  Erca- 
viccas,  Lugu-vvicc-,  Orga-vicas,  Rittu-vvecc-,  Ritta-vvecas,  and  possibly 
Glevica  .  .  .  for  Gleva-vicas.  To  this  may  perhaps  be  related  such 
forms  as  Vecco  and  Veco^  both  of  the  n  declension,  and  Veccius  implying 
Veccos  (C.  I.  L.,  XI.  1147,  p.  vii,  37):  the  cc  in  Ogam  mostly  means 
ch,  but  the  Continental  forms  with  cc  here  remind  one  of  the  Irish 
name  Fiacc,  genitive  Feicc,  which  seems  to  be  a  hypocoristic  form  of 
Fiec-,   Veic-  from  another  form  of  the  same  stem  :    compare  Gothic 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    55 

waihjo  'a  battle  ',  Lithuanian  ap-veikiH  '  I  force  \  and  cognate  forms 
with  a  diphthong  ci  or  ai :  see  AValde,  s.  v.  vinco.  Tliut  the  cc  was 
intentional  in  Vecco,  as  contrasted  with  Vecati  (genitive) — both  in  one 
and  the  same  inscription — is  probable :  see  C.  I.  />.,  V.  6644,  where 
it  is  said  to  be  at  Pallanza  on  Lake  Mae-triore. 

With  Athiti  corresponding  to  a  nominative  which  was  probably 
in  its  Latin  form  Athihcs  for  a  CgMic  Athito-s^  one  should  compare  the 
spelling  Adbitus  in  a  fragmentary  inscription  from  Vaison  (Vaucluse), 
now  at  Carpentras  (C  /.  L.,  XII.  1386).  From  these  it  is  difficult  to 
say  whether  Atbitu^  is  a  shortened  form  of  an  earlier  Ate-hito-s  or 
whether  it  begins  with  the  prefix  ad,  liable  to  be  written  at  before 
a  consonant  as  in  our  epitaph;  but  compare  oherte  {— od-berte^  in 
the  Celtic  Inscr.  of  Gaul,  pp.  66,  61.  Thus  ate-  seems  to  fit  better. 
Here  may  also  be  mentioned  the  simpler  name  Bitos  which  is  cited  by 
Holder  from  Alexandria  as  that  of  a  Gaul  . — Btros  AooroteK  o  FuAarfj?, 
to  whom  he  assigns  the  date  of  the  first  century  after  Christ :  see 
The  American  Journal  of  Archaeology,  HI  (Baltimore,  1887),  p.  265. 
The  Celticity  of  these  names  is  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt. 

^*^  The  remaining  Levo  epitaph  in  Latin  is  on  a  stone  still  at 
Levo  measuring  1™  25  by  0™  45,  and  it  reads  as  in  the  margin. 

That  is,  '  Surica  daughter  of  Ciposis ',  and  the 
SVRICA  name    Surica    occurs    also    in    Suricae    Dunnonis 

CIPOMIS  yi'^'^^)   "^   ^"    inscription    from    Castelseprio,   by 

p  Milan,   where    it    is    now   in    the   Brera  museum 

(C.  /.  L.,  V.  5618).    The  Latin  genitive  masculine 

occurs  in  an  inscription  now  in  the  Brescia 
museum,  brought  thither  from  Maderno  on  the  western  shore  of 
Lake  Garda  :  it  reads  '  Q.  Surici.  F(ilius)  |  Minervae  |  V.  S.  L.  M.' 
(C  /.  L.,  V.  4856).  The  Celtic  forms  were  Suricos  (genitive  Surici) 
and  Surica,  and  they  readily  resolve  themselves  into  Su-rico-s  and 
Su-rica  with  the  prefix  su-  '  well,  good  \  used  much  in  the  same  way 
as  the  Greek  eu-  in  ev-[j.op(pos  'fair  of  form",  which  in  fact  seems 
to  have  been  the  meaning  of  Sn-ricos,  Surica.  I  reason  in  this  way  : 
Welsh  rhith '  form,  appearance '  is  in  Irish  richt  with  the  same  meaning 
and  derivation  from  a  stem  rik-tu-,  the  meaning  of  which  probably 
attaches,  not  to  the  termination  but  to  rih  :  compare  Sanskrit  rekhati 
♦tearings,  scratches',  Greek  (peUco  'I  split,  break',  Lith.  rek-ti  'to 
cut,  to  plough  for  the  first  time'  (Stokes,  Fick,  II.  228,  233,  also  1. 115). 
To  this  diphthongized  stem  belongs  the  Welsh  rhzayg  '  a  tearing'  for 
an  early  reiko-,  and  from  the  sense  of  tearing  and  splitting  you  come 
to  that  of  lines  and  outlines.  Compare  the  German  Hitr^e,  Kiss 
*  a  scratch,  a  rift '  and  Gmndriss  or  Umriss  '  the  outline  or  contour  of 


56       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

an\ thing '.     If  the  Welsh  rhigol  'a  groove,  a  furrow,  a  small  ditch' 
also  belongs  to  the  root  in  question,  Surica  may  have  been  Su-rlcd. 

The  next  name  Ciposis  is  one  of  which  I  can  make  nothing  :  it  is 
noticeable  for  having  the  peculiarly  shaped  s  carried  into  an  epitaph 
in  the  Latin  language.  I  fancied,  however,  that  I  saw  the  same  or 
a  kindred  name  in  a  late  inscription  at  Suno,  to  which  my  attention 
had  been  some  time  before  directed  by  the  Cav.  Cesare  Poma  of  Biella. 
There  is  in  the  Berlin  Corpus  V.  8934  Addit.  (p.  1088)  a  reading  of  it 
by  Professor  Mommsen,  but  the  representations  of  it  which  he  had 
at  his  command  appear  to  have  been  misleading,  and  as  there  given 
it  is  unsatisfactory.  My  friend,  the  Cavaliere,  and  I  failed  also  to 
make  it  out  except  for  a  word  here  and  there  somewhat  as  below  :  it 
is  surmounted  by  a  wheel  cross  : — 

CAmiNA 
IN  •  CIPODI 
Em  :  LXVII 
..  .O    •    •  KH  ••• 
lO     R    AD 
VEHAFIB   ER 
UI  TUAVIA 
EKT 

The  first  three  lines  seem  to  read  *  Camina  j  in  :  Cipodi  )  em  : 
Ixvii ',  possibly  '  Cipodie  Mil  xvij  ' ;  while  in  the  fifth  and  sixth 
lines  the  word  advena  seems  to  emerge,  and  the  end  appears  to  be 
*  fii  •  tua  via  |  est '.  In  Cipodi  in  the  second  line  I  should  suggest 
that  possibly  the  D  stands  for  a  barred  €).  This  sometimes  appears 
in  Celtic  as  an  alternative  for  s  or  ss,  which  would  give  us  something 
like  Ciposi  or  Cipossiem. 

8.  Carcegna  is  the  name  of  a  place  in  the  commune  of  Miasuno, 
on  the  Lago  d'Orta,  and  there,  in  1903,  was  found  one  of  the  most 
instructive  of  our  Celtic  inscriptions.  It  was  on  land  belonging  to 
the  Cav.  Curioni,  who  has,  besides  his  residence  at  Turin,  a  country 
house  on  the  shore  of  the  lake  close  to  the  little  town  of  Orta.  The 
discovery  of  the  inscription  was  communicated  to  a  well-known  and 
reliable  archaeologist.  Dr.  Elia  Lattes,  of  Milan,  who  published  a  brief 
account  of  it,  together  with  two  photographs,  in  the  pages  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  Turin  Academy — Atti  ddla  R.  Accademia  delle 
Scienze  di  Torino,  vol.  XXXIX.  Disp.  1=^  (1903-4),  p.  449  et  seq. : 
see  also  Danielsson,  loc.cit ,  p.  18.    The  inscription  had  been  scratched 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIOxXS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    57 

on  a  terra-cotta  vase  the  top  of  which  was  missing;  as  it  stood,  it 
measured  0°"  07  high  by  0°*  11  at  its  greatest  diameter.  Since  t}ien  the 
missing  fragment  appears  to  have  been  found  by  a  peasant,  and  the 
whole  proves  to  have  been  of  the  same  somewhat  turbinate  shape  as  that 
represented  in  Bianchetti's  Sepolcreti  di  Ornavasso,  plate  XX.  fig.  16. 
(1)  The  legend  is  as  follows,  from  left  to  right,  romid  the  top  of 
the  fragment : — 

That  is  '  Metelui  Maesilalui  Venia  Metelikna  Asmina  Krasanikna '. 
On  this  there  are  two  or  three  remarks  to  make  :  the  lettering  forms 
a  circle,  and  the  word  Asmina  comes  nearly  up  to  Metelui,  so  the 
vocable  Krasanikna  is,  roughly  speaking,  placed  underneath  so  that  it 
ends  opposite  the  end  oi Metelui.  The  U  oi  Metelui  is  somewhat  shorter 
than  the  letters  next  to  it,  being  prevented  from  taking  its  proper  place 
by  a  horizontal  bit  of  stone  in  the  wall  of  the  ware.  The  first  arm  of 
the  V  of  Venia  is  slightly  curved,  and  at  the  bottom  the  inscriber's 
tool  seems  to  have  slipped ;  but  to  my  thinking  the  letter  is  a  V  and 
not  an  imperfect  K.^  In  Prof.  Lattes's  plate  there  is  between  the  I 
and  the  K  of  Metelikna  a  small  v  at  the  top  or  a  mark  which,  with 
the  I,  completes  an  N',  so  that  the  reading  there  is  Meteliukna  or 
Metelnkna.  How  this  spelling  came  in  I  cannot  tell ;  I  did  not 
notice  it  when  looking  at  the  vase  itself,  but  I  had  then  no  copy  of 
Dr.  Lattes's  account  of  the  inscription. 

Metelui  is  the  dative  of  Metelo-s  or  Metello-s :  compare  Metela, 
masc,  from  Borgo  S.  Dalmazzo  near  the  western  boundary  of  Pied- 
mont, and  Metiliiis,  Metillius  of  which  Holder  gives  instances.  Such 
forms  seem  to  be  traceable  to  met-,  whence  Welsh  med-i  '  the  act  of 
reaping ',  medel '  a  reaping  party  \  Irish  methel  with  the  same  meaning  ; 
but  the  form  most  remarkable  in  this  context  is  the  Cornish  midil, 
glossed  by  the  Latin  word  messor  (Stokes,  Fick,  II.  207),  which  also 
occurs  as  a  cognomen.  We  now  come  to  Maesilalui,  which  is  the 
dative  of  Maesildlos,  meaning  '  son  of  Maesilos  or  Maesillos ':  it  is 
difficult  to  explain  which.  On  the  whole  I  should  treat  it  as  Mesillos, 
regarding  it  as  being  spelt  with  ae  under  Latin  influence.  Corssen, 
in  his  work  Uber  Aussprache,  Vokalismus  und  Betommg  der  lateinischen 
Sprache,  V,  pp.  692-4,  concludes  that  ae  from  ai  presents  itself  as  e, 
including  e,  as  in  praetia,  modaestia,  conditionemquae,  and  that  in 

^  This  will  hardly  dispose  of  the  doubtful  vocable  :  I  have  been  lately  examining 
Dr.  Lattes's  photographs  more  closely^  and  I  seem  to  see  M  N'  i  f^  that  is  snnia, 
a  reading  which  could  be  explained,  though  a  highly  improbable  one. 


58       PROCEEDINGS  OF   THE  BRITISH   ACADEMY 

the  language  of  cultivated  men  the  sound  was  e  in  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries  even  though  ae  continued  to  be  written  in  books  and  public 
documents.  He  then  appends  a  string  of  instances  in  which  ae  and  e 
appear  indifferently,  such  as  Titian  Lucid^,  Polliag  Prim^,  Nepotilk 
filial,  and  Dian^  Sancta^.  Assuming  that  the  ae  in  our  inscription 
was  due  to  Latin  influence  we  reach  a  form  of  the  name,  which  is 
probably  more  genuine,  to  wit,  Mesillos,  occurring  as  Messil%  genitive 
of  Messilus  in  a  Latin  inscription  at  Brescia  (C  /.  />.,  V.  4536), 
and  we  have  the  same  name  as  Missillus  (C  /.  L.,  II.  5812)  in  an  in- 
scription from  Sasamon  (north-west  of  Burgos,  in  Spain)  to  which 
Holder  assigns  the  date  a.  d.  239.  He  cites  instances  of  the  feminine 
as  MessUla,  with  dative  Messillae  and  Messille  (C.  I.  L.,  III.  1872, 1901, 
3990);  and  from  Aquileia  (V.  1438)  there  comes  a  rarer  genitive  in  esin 
D.  M.  Valeriae  Messilles.  Besides  Messil{l)ns  there  was  a  spelling  with 
barred -9  or  0,  such  as  the  potter's  stamp  MESILLVS,  Mll-B£)l  LLVS, 
MEfi-DILLVS,  together  with  the  feminine  Meddila,  and  related  forms 
Medd'illius,  Meddicus,  and  Meddirius.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that,  accord- 
ing to  Holder,  there  was  also  a  spelling  Medsillus,  which  I  regard  as 
intermediate  between  Messill-  and  Meddill- :  compare  Ressi-mams 
and  Redso-mdrus,  identified  by  Zeuss  with  Reddo-marus.  For  all  these 
names  see  Holder's  entries  Meddillus,  Redso-marus,  and  kindred 
names;  also  my  Celtic  inscriptions  of  Gaul,  pp.  11,  12,  with  the  note 
on  Meddillus  a  propos  of  Ml<t(tovkos,  in  which  it  is  suggested  that 
dd  represents  a  lisping  pronunciation,  common  in  Gaul,  of  ss,  where 
apparently  the  ss  had  been  derived  from  ?is. 

The  next  name,  Venia,  claims  kinship  with  the  Welsh  g7ven '  a  smile  \ 
from  a  root  ue7i  '  to  be  glad,  to  look  at  with  delight ',  whence  Irish 
fine  '  kinship,  family,  one's  kin '  from  an  early  veuid.  If  our  Venia  be 
of  the  same  formation  it  may  have  meant  'one  of  our  kith  and  kin, 
one  of  whom  her  family  was  proud,  or  else  one  who  was  proud  of  her 
race  and  descent '.  But  as  a  matter  of  derivation  Venia  as  a  short 
name  was  based  on  such  compounds  as  Veni-clutius,  and  Veni-carus  or 
Veno-carus,  the  former  of  which  is  found  to  have  been  widely  spread 
on  the  Continent  as  a  potter's  name  :  it  probably  meant  '  one  who  wins 
fame  for  his  clan,  or  else  one  who  is  famous  in  his  clan  '.  From  such 
compounds,  probably,  was  derived  a  short  name  Veno-s,  which  is 
represented  in  Welsh  by  Gxoen,  the  name  of  one  of  Llywarch  Hen's 
sons.  Venia  Metelikna  means  a  Venia  who  is  a  little  Metellos,  that  is 
daughter  of  a  father  so  named,  an  edition,  so  to  say,  of  him. 

Abmina  would  seem  to  be  a  shortened  form  of  Abimina,  and  that 
a  pronunciation  of  Acsimina  or  Aximina  a  regular  derivative  from 
Acsimo-s  or  Acsimd,  as   to  which  see  pp.  27,  28  above.     The  lady 


THE   CELTIC  INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE   GAUL    59 

Asmiim  was  probably  the  last  or  the  only  wife  of  Metellos  and 
daughter  of  Crassanos  a  name  postulated  by  Craxanio-s,  genitive 
Craxanii,  in  a  Latin  inscription  at  Nimes,  reading  Excingomaru^ 
Craxanii  F{ilius)  'Ex.  son  of  Craxanios'  (C  /.  L.,  XII.  3577). 
Holder  cites  related  forms  such  as  Craxii^,  Craxa,  Craxius,  Craxsius, 
Craxxiu^,  Craxxilhis,  Craxsantus,  not  to  mention  the  spellings  with 
s  as  in  Crasius,  feminine  Crasia.  The  reduction  in  pronunciation 
of  cs  to  ss,  while  the  spelling  with  x  continued  some  time  longer, 
may  be  reasonably  supposed  to  have  made  the  reverse  possible,  i.  e.  to 
write  X  for  the  sound  of  ss  or  s,  where  x  never  had  any  etymological 
footing.  Thus  it  is  possible  that  these  names  with  x  are  of  the  same 
origin  as  Latin  Crassus,  Crassichis,  and  allied  forms. 

The  inscription  as  a  whole  may  be  rendered  thus :  To  Metellos,  son 
of  M(a)essillos,  Venia  daughter  of  Metellos  and  Asmina  daughter  of 
Crassanos  (give  it). 

(2)  On  the  bottom  of  a  nice  little  terra-cotta  lamp  in  the  same 
collection,  I  saw,  in  neat  Latin  letters,  the  inscription  OMI  SE,  which 
looks  like  a  dative  feminine  reduced  from  Omisai. 

^*^  Another,  and  hard  to  read,  seems  to  have  E  A  BR  ID  MA  :  but 
the  D  is  very  doubtful,  and  may  have  been  L-  that  is  L  with  a  point 
following.    The  M  A :  looks  as  if  it  stood  for  nianu. 

9.  Ornavasso,  Avhich  is  a  small  town  in  the  south  of  the  Valle 
d'OssoIa  not  far  from  Lago  d'Orta  and  Lago  Maggiore,  is  the  home  of 
the  Bianchetti  family.  The  late  Enrico  Bianchetti,  who  died  in  1893, 
was  a  member  of  the  Italian  parliament  and  a  distinguished  archaeo- 
logist, who  excavated  two  extensive  burial  places  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  town.  At  the  beginning  of  September,  1890,  some  workings 
connected  with  the  railway  from  Novara  to  Domodossola  brought  to 
light,  close  to  a  little  chapel  called  S.  Bernardo,  pieces  of  ancient 
earthenware  vases  and  fragments  of  objects  in  metal.  The  Cav.  Bian- 
chetti was  told  of  the  discovery,  and  he  went  to  the  spot  but  too 
late  to  prevent  the  destruction  of  a  quantity  of  the  antiquities  by 
the  navvies,  who  had  been  filled  with  the  expectation  of  finding 
treasure.  After  putting  a  stop  to  the  devastation  with  the  aid  of 
his  friends,  and  securing  a  short  lease  of  the  piece  of  ground  which 
he  deemed  the  most  promising,  he  went  to  work  and  did  not  stop 
till  he  had  excavated  165  tombs,  without  counting  those  destroyed 
by  the  navvies.  This  was  at  S.  Bernardo  (B),  and  when  he  had 
finished  there  he  secured  temporary  possession  of  another  promising 
plot  of  ground  not  far  off  called  In  persona  (P),  which  proved  a  some- 
what later  burial  place;  in  fact  it  appeared  to  have  been  brought 
into  use  when  the  other  had  been  filled.     There  also  the  number  of 


60       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

tombs  excavated  amounted  to  165,  but  had  the  work  been  continued 
he  was  of  opinion  that  the  number  could  have  been  increased. 

The  next  work  he  undertook  was  the  writing  of  a  complete  account 
of  the  objects  found  in  the  course  of  his  excavation  of  the  two 
cemeteries.  But  he  did  not  live  to  finish  it  entirely,  and  his  friend 
Professor  Ermanno  Ferrero  undertook  to  see  it  published,  which  he 
did  under  the  title  of  '  I  sepolcreti  di  Ornavasso  scoperti  e  descritti  da 
Enrico  Bianchetti '.  Illustrated  by  twenty-six  photographic  plates, 
it  forms  volume  VI  of  the  Atti  della  Societa  (TArcheologia  e  Belle  Arti 
per  la  Provincia  di  Torino  (Turin,  1895).  This  priceless  collection 
of  the  antiquities  which  Bianchetti  made  is  now  in  his  house  in- 
habited by  his  son,  the  Cav.  Edgardo  Bianchetti,  who  with  his  lady 
received  us  with  great  kindness  and  hospitality.  I  ought  to  have 
said  that  a  number  of  pieces  of  Samian  ware  from  Ornavasso  may 
be  seen  also  in  the  Cantonal  Museum  at  Lugano,  a  few  may  be 
found  in  the  local  museum  at  Domodossola,  and  probably  some 
in  other  museums  to  which  the  generous  discoverer  made  presents 
out  of  his  store. 

The  inscriptions  which  the  Cav.  Bianchetti  has  registered  in  his 
Sepolcreti  di  Ornavasso  are  in  some  cases  in  Latin  letters  and  in  others 
in  the  North  Etruscan  alphabet — the  numbers  are  his,  as  follows  : — (2) 
ATIICVA  (P),  which  has  already  been  noticed,  p.  52.  (3)  ....  aji- 
tionis  (P).  (6)  C  lUII  (P)»  that  is  Cese.  The  s  is  nearly  everywhere 
$,  or  the  reverse,  and  its  presence  hardly  proves  the  alphabet  to  be 
Etruscan,  while  C  and  ||  point  to  Latin,  as  do  also  such  names  as 
Caesar^  Caesius,  Caeso7iius,  and  Caeso  or  Kaeso.  (11)  .  .  onis  (P). 
(13)  P  •  PVSIONIS  (P).  (14)  Sa  (B),  which  is  doubtless  part  of 
the  name  in  the  next  number.  (15)  Sabi  (P).  The  letters  and 
words  in  the  Etruscan  alphabet  are  the  following  :^(1)  A  (B).  (4) 
^Ol  XA  (B),  that  is  Alios,  possibly  Antios  or  eheAdios.  This  last 
occurs  as  a  dative  Adio  at  Aries  (C.  /.  L.,  XII.  796).  (5)  AT  1 5  (P), 
that  is  Atis^  which  may  be  said  to  be  in  mixed  letters.  It  was  the 
name  of  a  king  of  the  Transpadan  Boii  in  the  third  century  B.C. :  see 
Holder,  s.  vv.  A  lis  and  Galatos.  (7)  Y  (B).  (8)  feV  (B)  •*  compare 
iu  in  20  (y)  below.  (9)  Ma  (B),  with  which  may  perhaps  be  compared 
Ta^^^za  in  no.  18.  (10)  KDl,  that  is  A'n  (B).  (12)  ^oV,  that  is 
Pov  (B).  (16)  X  (B),  probably  the  Etruscan  for  T,  occurs  on  a 
number  of  vases  a  trottola  and  other  vessels.  Nobody  has,  so  far  as  I 
know,  guessed  the  meaning  of  this  and  the  other  one-letter  inscriptions. 

(17)  ^OMA^AV  (B)'  that  is  Vasamos,  in  which  we  seem  to  have 
the  vas  of  the  Celtic  vasso-s  continued  in  Irish  as  Joss,  Welsh  gzcas 
'a  young  man,  a  servant'.    Holder  cites  ]'assiis  also  as  a  man's  name, 


THE   CELTIC  INSCRIPTIONS  OF   CISALPINE   GAUL     61 

having  probably  been  suggested  by  such  a  compound  as  Fa.wo-ri.r 
meaning  literally  '  king  or  leader  of  the  young  men  \  Vas(s)amos 
would  seem  to  be  a  superlative  formation  meaning  a  most  devoted 
attendant  or  companion,  a  most  faithful  vassal. 

(18)  A|>I3^AV  (B)»  that  is  Vasekia,  the  feminine  of  Vasekto-s 
derived  from  Vaseko-s,  which  occurs  as  a  (Latin)  nominative  Vasecus 
(C.  I.  L.,  II,  363)  at  Soure  in  Portugal.  Speaking  of  the  form, 
one  might  take  the  termination  -eco-  to  be  a  reduction  of  -aico-, 
not  of  -aco- ;  for  some  instances  see  Holder,  volume  III.  526.  But 
there  is  another  way  of  attacking  the  name,  to  wit,  by  pronouncing 
it  Vasegia  and  connecting  it  with  Vosegus  the  (Latin)  name  of  the 
god  of  Caesar's  '  Mons  Vosegus'  (IV.  10),  whence  the  French  Vosges, 
called  in  German  Wasgau,  derived  according  to  Holder  from  Vasego : 
see  his  volume  III.  448,  450.  There  he  cites  an  imperfect  inscription 
which  describes  a  building  sacred  to  the  god  Vosegus  Silvestris.  It 
was  found  at  the  foot  of  the  Reiberg,  and  it  is  now  in  the  museum  at 
Niederbronn  (C.  /.  L.,  XIII.  6027). 

(19)  VIIM^^^  (B),  which  yields  an  ambiguous  reading, 
either  AmasHu  or  Amaseu.  The  former  may  represent  Ammasi-iu^ 
perhaps  for  Am{b)asi-iu,  to  be  compared  with  Lutou  iu  in  the  next 
number  (20  y).  In  any  case  Ve^ama  is  not  to  be  accepted,  as  it  is 
obtained  by  reading  the  letters  from  left  to  right  regardless  of  their 
proper  aspect.  Note  should  be  taken  of  the  M  which  is  like  a  ^  with 
a  small  X  attached  to  its  arm  :  it  is  Bianchetti's  facsimile,  p.  69.  The 
letter  ^  has  its  verticals  produced  below  the  level  of  the  others  so 
that  it  looks  as  if  on  stilts.  Since  there  seems  to  be  no  decisive 
reason  for  reading  II  as  Latin  e  in  the  midst  of  Etruscan  forms,  one 
should  perhaps  treat  the  II  as  the  1 1  of  ALISIJA,  that  is  Alisua  (C. 
Jmc.  of  France  and  Italy,  pp.  4,  5),  which  Avas  doubtless  Gaulish. 
Here  one  may  accordingly  read  Am{h)asfm  the  dative  of  Ambasiio-s, 
which,  strange  to  say,  we  have  from  far  distant  Thebes,  to  wit,  in 
the  Latin  form  of  Ambasius.  See  the  Ephemeris  Epigraphka,  V, 
p.  264,  no.  1471,  and  compare  Dr.  Herbig's  Amui,  p.  29  above.  For 
the  termination  -asio-,  -asia,  see  Holder's  instances,  I.  247,  III.  707. 

We  now  come  to  the  alternative  reading  Amaseu  which  treats  the 
last  letter  but  one  as  Latin  II  (=  e).  That  name  1  should  regard  as 
standing  for  an  earlier  dative  Am(b)ase-ui  oi  Am{b)aseo-s,  derived  from 
a  simpler  form  Am(b)aso-s  ;  for  the  termination  -eo-s  (perhaps  for  an 
earlier  -aio-s)  one  may  refer  to  p.  7  above.  I  give  the  preference  to 
the  reading  A  maseu  '  To  or  for  Am(b)aseos  \ 

(20)  As  regards  inscriptions  we  now  come  to  far  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  Ornavasso  finds  :  it  is  a  vase  a  trottola  of  red  earthen- 


62        PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

ware  measuring  in  diameter  where  it  bulges  most  0™  208,  and  in 
its  total  height  0"^  138  (/  Sepolcreti  di  Ornavasso,  pp.  69,  145). 
The  vessel  shows  on  different  parts  of  its  surface  no  less  than  four 
bits  of  writing :  they  seem  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  one  another, 
and  they  have  been  read  as  follows : — 

(a)  AavoMi 

That  is,  reading  forwards,  Inouea,  possibly  for  Innouea  or  rather 
In-gnouea,  formed  with  the  help  of  the  termination  -ed  (masculine 
-eo-s)  from  a  simpler  name  In-gnouo-s  involving  a  stem  gnouo-s  to 
be  compared  with  the  Breton  gnou  '  manifeste,  evident  \  and  the 
Welsh  personal  name  Gnoiian,  also  Irish  gnde  '  anything  delightful, 
a  thing  of  beauty',  gndda  'famous'.  For  these  and  forms  of 
kindred  origin  see  pp.  35-7  above,  where,  among  other  instances  of 
words  derived  from  gna  'to  know\  I  mentioned  the  following  with 
the  prefix  in-,  Irish  in-gne  '  inteU'igentia  \  in-gnaidi  '  intellectus  \ 
Welsh  yn-gnat,  ynad  'a  judge'.  It  seems  legitimate  to  suppose 
Inouea  to  represent  an  earlier,  fuller  form  In-{g)nouea,  with  the 
prefix  in-  strengthening  the  signification  into  something  like  '  having 
a  very  sound  judgement,  or  else  very  distinguished,  very  beautiful,  or 
very  famous '.  In  the  case  of  a  woman's  name  which  exact  shade  of 
meaning  one  should  fix  upon  I  cannot  say :  let  it  suflfice  that  it  was, 
doubtless,  intended  to  be  highly  flattering  to  the  bearer. 
(/3)  The  next  reads 

ilHVX 

That  is  tnni,  probably  representing  Dun{n)i  the  genitive  case  of 
Dun{n)o-s,  from  which  we  have  already  had  Tunal(a)  meaning 
daughter  of  Du7i{n)os,  p.  53,  above.  I  am  not  sure  that  the  punctua- 
tion following  the  I  does  not  suggest  that  the  inscriber  meant  to  have 
written  more,  but  what  we  have  no  means  of  guessing. 

(y)  The  next  yields  two  words,  or  rather  perhaps  a  single  word 
followed  by  an  abbreviation  of  a  second  one,  thus  : — 

VI:VOXV>J 

That  is,  when  read  forwards,  Luton  iu.  This  would  be,  provided  the 
X  has  its  ordinary  values,  Lutou  iu  or  Ludou  iu.  The  former  with 
t  has  possibly  a  nearly  related  form  in  the  Irish  name  Loth,  genitive 
Loith  (Bk,  of  Leinster,  fo.  334<^),  representing  the  early  forms,  nomina- 
tive Lotos,  genitive  Loti.  Compare  also  the  feminine  Lut,  genitive 
Luta  (ibid.,  353*",  359') ;  here  Lut  suggests  the  w  declension,  but 
other  MSS.  give  Luit,  genitive  L'dbta  of  the  i  declension  :  see  Stokes's 


i 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALriNE   GAUL    63 

Gorman.,  April  30  and  July  27.  In  any  case  the  name  in  (juestion  is 
here  of  the  u  declension,  Ltitou  being  the  regular  dative.  So  Lutou  iu 
would  mean  '  To  or  for  Ltdus  an  in ' ;  but  what  is  one  to  make  of 
the  two  letters  IV,  which  are  possibly  to  be  detached  also  in  the  case 
of  the  A  M  A  S 1 1 V  lately  touched  upon  ?  No  such  doubt  can  occur, 
however,  as  to  an  instance  across  which  I  have  come  in  Holder's  third 
volume  (col.  786),  where  one  finds  quoted  from  C.  I.  L.  (XIII.  10010. 
3190")  the  short  legend,  BAAI  •  IV,  not  produced  as  a  graffito  or 
scratch  of  any  kind  but  stamped  on  a  vessel  when  the  clay  was  still 
soft,  not  once  but  four  times.  The  vessel  is  described  as  a  piece  of 
black  pottery  traced  to  Ladenburg,  whence  it  found  its  way  to  the 
museum  at  Carlsruhe,^  in  Baden,  where  it  is  to  be  seen.  The  letters 
are  ordinary  Latin  capitals,  concerning  which,  as  represented  in  the 
Corpus,  there  is  nothing  to  remark  except  that  the  first  N  is  made 
to  incline  awkwardly  towards  the  B  and  away  from  the  other  A. 
All  that  the  editor  (Zangemeister)  says  is — '  Vas  nigrum  BAAI  •  IV 
quater  impress(um)\  To  the  question  of  the  identity  of  the  IV  per- 
haps the  first  answer  to  suggest  itself  would  be  that  it  stands  for  the 
numeral  four,  but  even  so  what  could  that  mean  here .''  Supposing 
a  possible  answer  to  this  latter  question  to  be  forthcoming,  it  is  to  be 
borne  in  mind  that  iu  goes  with  a  dative  case,  here  a  dative  feminine. 
Compare  provisionally  Aai  pala  where  the  pala  was  for  the  woman 
named  Aa  (p.  14  above).  There  is  no  mistake  as  to  the  case  being 
dative,  for  it  is  needless  to  repeat  that  one  sets  out,  in  the  present 
instance  also,  from  a  dative,  namely,  Lutou  or  Ludou,  the  gender  of 
which  is  not  indicated  by  its  declension.  Before  dismissing  this 
question  with  the  admission  that  I  hardly  know  what  to  make  of  I V, 
it  may  possibly  be  worth  mentioning  that  I  V  appears  once  or  twice 
as  an  abbreviation  in  the  Coligny  Calendar,  where,  as  we  kno\v,  the 
complete  word  was  IVOS,  sometimes  abbreviated  into  IVO  in  that 
document.  There  I  was  led  to  interpret  IVOS  as  meaning '  a  banquet 
or  feast '  and  as  having  possibly  another  form,  euos.,  which  we  seem  to 
have  in  the  feV  of  no.  8  above.  It  is  to  be  traced  in  Celtic  personal 
names;  see  my  Academy  paper  on  The  Coligny  Calendar,  pp.  50-52, 
where  I  have  offered  some  conjectures  as  to  the  etymology  of  the 
word.  Accordingly  Lutou  iu  might  be  rendered  '  A  feast  for  Lutus  ' 
or  lutus  \  and  Baai  iu  'a  feast  for  BaaM  or  better  haa,  for  which 
see  p.  75  below, 

(8)  We  come  now  to  the  most  famous  of  all  these  inscriptions  of 

'  Since  this  was  written  the  learned  Director  of  the  Carlsruhe  Museum  kindly 
took  an  impression  of  the  whole  fragment  for  me  ;  so  I  am  enabled  to  reproduce 
it  by  means  of  photography. 


64        PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

Cisalpine  Gaul :  the  learned  excavator  gives  it  as  follows  from  right 
to  left  (pp.  69,  145)  :— 

M0^A^iM0^lVi3llAXV^1A^:lVaAMVXA>l 

That  makes  in  English  letters :  Latumarui  Sapsxitaipe  uinom  naxom^ 
which  should  mean  'To  or  for  Latumaros  and  Sapsuta  Naxian  wine'. 
The  letters  require  no  special  notice  except  the  third  from  the  end, 
which  has  been  treated  as  if  it  were  a  form  of  M  ,  transcribed  s  by 
Pauli.  I  see  no  adequate  reason  for  that  treatment ;  as  in  the  case  of 
Aximai  (p.  27  above)  I  take  it  to  be  a  form  of  X  ;  for  X  =  Latin  x 
was  inadmissible,  since  in  this  alphabet  X  had  the  sound  of  t  (or  d). 
So  a  modification  was  made  by  introducing  a  line  joining  the  lower 
ends  of  the  X — in  the  previous  instance  the  upper  ends  were  joined. 
Either  expedient  would  do  to  distinguish  X  =  cs  from  X  =  t :  the 
former  was  probably  the  value  which  the  graffito  writer  intended  as 
the  sound  of  f  in  Na^os  and  Na^to-,  which  he  reduced  to  nacso-. 

Latumarui  is  the  dative  of  Latnmaro-s,  which  resolves  itself  into 
Latu-mdro-Sf  meaning  '  great  in  respect  of  what  is  signified  by  latu ', 
which  is  represented  in  Welsh  by  Had.  Dr.  Davies  explains  Had  as 
*  gratia,  donum,  beneficium',  plural  lladau,  citing  from  a  mediaeval 
source  the  words  'Pan  fo  rhaid  atteb  am  bob  defnyn  o'r  llyn  aV 
lladau '  =  *  when  it  is  necessary  to  answer  for  every  drop  of 
the  ale  and  the  other  good  things ' :  they  seem  to  have  been  also 
drinks.^  This  is  borne  out  by  the  use  made  of  Had,  for  instance,  by 
Cyndelw,  a  bard  of  the  twelfth  century  who,  when  celebrating  Owain 
Cyfeiliog's  hospitality  in  eight  englyns,  dwells  in  seven  of  them  on  the 
drinks  he  used  to  place  before  his  guests.  Gold  takes  a  second  place 
in  the  bard's  grateful  reckoning,  and  he  speaks  of  that  prince's  hand 
as  distributing  drink  horns  full  of  Had  :  the  line  runs  thus  : — Vn  Haxv 
Hew  cad  hyrn  Had  Hawn  =  '  in  the  war-lion's  hand  the  Had  horns 
are  full'.  See  the  Myvyrian  Archaiology^  I.  234\  Add  to  this 
the   testimony  of  the  old  Cornish  Vocabulary,  in   which   we  have, 

*  Davies  next  gives  penlldd  (better  pen  Had)  as  summurn  honum  and  rhad  penlldd 
as  summa  gratia,  summum  beneficium.  The  attempt  to  identify  pen  Had  with  the 
summum  bonum  is  probably  late  and  not  worth  considering  here.  For,  be  it  noted, 
there  was  a  Had  which  he  gives  as  the  name  of  a  measure  of  capacity,  a  vocable 
of  another  origin,  being  some  old  form  of  the  English  lade  '  a  lading,  a  load '. 
His  words  in  point  are  '  Alicubi  Had  est  mensnru  quaedam,  Deuddeg  mwysel  o 
geirch  yn  y  Had,  ac  8  o'r  rhyg  a'r  gwenith.  Penllad  yw  dwy  lad,  sef  mesur 
dauddyblyg',  whicli  may  be  rendered  :  '  It  is  twelve  bushels  of  oats  there  are  in 
a  lade,  and  8  of  rye  or  wheat.  Penlldd  is  two  lades,  that  is  to  say  a  double 
measure.'  Pughe  gives  the  definition  of  the  measure  as  coming  from  the  Welsh 
Laws,  but  he  gives  no  further  reference. 


THE   CELTIC    INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE  GAUL    Go 

as  printed  in  the  Grammatka  CeUica'\  p.  1080,  the  Latin  word  liquor 
explained  simply  as  lad^  the  equivalent  of  Welsh  Had;  and  further  afield 
there  is  the  Irish  word  laith,  meaning  'ale'  (Stokes  in  Fick's  II.  ^ijS). 
He  suggests  as  of  the  same  origin  Irish  lathach,  Welsh  llaid  '  mud, 
mire  ',  and  compares  Latin  latex  '  any  liquid,  anything  wet "" ;  but  the 
Latin  word  itself  is  supposed  to  be  borrowed  from  the  Greek  \dra^, 
gen.  Aarayo?,  plural  Adrayey  '  the  few  drops  of  wine  in  the  bottom  of 
the  cup,  which  were  thrown  with  a  splash  into  a  basin ' :  see  Walde, 
s.v.  latex.  With  regard  to  the  sequence  of  ideas  in  the  drink  words, 
one  seems  to  have  proceeded  from  that  of  good  things  to  drink  to 
that  of  banquets  and  hospitality  generally,  by  substituting  the  part 
for  the  whole  somewhat  on  the  lines  of  the  definition  of  a  banquet 
in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  as  being  usually  one  long  drink  with 
a  short  interval  of  eating.  We  seem  accordingly  to  be  at  liberty  to 
suppose  that  the  name  Latu-maro-s  meant  one  who  was  famous  for 
his  di'ink  feasts,  one  whose  hospitality  was  great.  It  is  probably 
a  mere  accident  that  the  man  so  named  here  is  represented  as  the 
actual  or  possible  receiver  of  a  present  of  wine  from  a  distant  country. 

Setting  aside  the  end  syllable  of  the  second  word  as  -pe,  meaning 
'  and  ',  and  equating  it  as  Gaulish  with  the  -qui  of  another  Celtic  lan- 
guage, to  wit,  in  OvvaKovi,  which  we  may  put  into  Latin  as  Onnaeqite 
'  and  oiO\vaa.\C.Insc.  of  Gaul,  pp.  8-10),  we  have  left  for  our  considera- 
tion the  name  Sapsutai,  dative  of  Sapsuta.  Holder  (III.  56)  treats  -uta, 
masculine  -uto-  as  a  termination,  not  as  part  of  a  compound,  and 
gives  other  instances:  this  would  leave  us  the  first  element  of  the 
name  as  saps-y  the  history  of  which  is  obscure.  It  may  possibly  be  of 
the  same  origin  as  Latin  sap{p)imis  a  kind  of  fir-tree  or  pine,  whence 
French  sapin  'a  fir'.  The  Latin  meant  also  the  knotless  lower  growth 
of  a  fir-tree  or  pine.  Walde  supposes  it  derived  from  a  postulated 
Gaulish  form  sapos  for  a  '  fir-tree ',  whence  Proven<^al  and  O.  French 
sap  of  the  same  meaning,  late  Latin  sapus.  It  is  possible  that  the 
name  Sapsuta  may  have  etymologically  meant '  a  little  pine ' ;  we  had 
in  Welsh  such  women's  names  as  Oniien  literally  meaning  '  ash-tree ', 
while  in  English  Myrtle  and  the  like  are  not  unusual  to-day.  But, 
as  far  as  form  goes,  it  would  fit  to  suppose  Sapsuta,  a  shortening  of 
Sapo-suta,  as  admitting  of  being  interpreted  'offspring  or  child  of 
the  sapos ' :  see  Stokes  in  Fick's  II.  306.  Should  such  an  explanation 
of  the  combination  ps  be  considered  unsatisfactory,  I  may  suggest 
some  such  stem  as  that  of  the  Greek  adjective  a-acpijs,  aacfyes  '  bright, 
clear '.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  is  assumed  that  no  vowel  formerly 
came  between  the  p  and  the  s  of  Sapsuta,  1  should  be  inclined  to 
regard  saps-  as  the  phonological  antecedent  of  the  sass-  of  the  many 

VI  2  u  5 


66        PROCEEDINGS   OF   THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

Celtic  names  cited  by  Holder  from  inscriptions  in  Latin,  such  as 
Sassus,  Sassa,  Sassula,  Sasso,  Sasso7ims,  Sasoima,  and  a  name  probably 
pronounced  Sassamns  but  spelt  Saxsarmis^  Saxxamu^  or  Saxamus. 

My  conjecture  that  sass-  is  a  phonological  reduction  of  the  saps-  of 
Sapsutai  would  imply  that  the  latter  is  decidedly  earlier  in  point 
of  date  than  the  inscriptions  with  names  beginning  with  saps-  reduced 
to  sass-.  This  is  borne  out  by  other  features  of  the  Latumaros 
inscription.  Not  to  mention  that  the  latter  reads  from  right  to  left, 
it  has  the  neuter  ending  in  m,  not  in  w,  in  uinom  Naxom ;  in  fact  no 
other  Celtic  instance  is  known  of  this  m  ending,  though  it  is  recog- 
nized to  have  been  the  original  nasal  occurring  in  that  position  in  the 
Indo-European  parent  speech,  as  it  always  does  in  I^atin.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  ninorn  '  wine  "*  was  a  loan  from  Latin  or  some  ancient  Italian 
dialect  and  not  from  Greek  f^oivos,  oivos.  With  regard  to  the  adjec- 
tive, I  have  already  given  my  reason  for  reading  Naxom  and  not 
NaSom :  in  either  case  '  Naxian,  from  the  Island  of  Naxos '  was 
doubtless  meant. 

It  is  right,  however,  to  say  that  Prof.  Danielsson  has  expressed  his 
doubt  as  to  Naxian  wine  reaching  the  neighbourhood  of  Ornavasso, 
but  I  fail  to  share  that  doubt,  and  I  find  that  our  distinguished 
colleague.  Sir  Arthur  J.  Evans,  the  excavator  of  Cnossos,  sees  nothing 
impossible  in  it,  and  I  have  talked  about  it  to  other  classical  scholars, 
who  agree  with  Sir  Arthur.  I  may  add  that  since  Prof.  Danielsson 
wrote  (loc.  cit.,  p.  18)  the  elaborate  paper,  already  mentioned, 
of  Dr.  Baserga's  with  the  title  '  La  Necropoli  preromana  di 
Gudo  nel  Canton  Ticino ',  appeared  in  the  Como  Rivista  Archeo- 
logica  for  the  year  1911,  where  it  occupies  nearly  140  pages  and 
deals  among  other  topics  with  some  of  the  early  trade  routes  of  the 
Ticino.  The  principal  one  mentioned  seems  to  have  proceeded  from 
Locarno  by  Bellinzona  and  Mesocco  to  the  St.  Bernardino  Pass  and 
over  into  the  valley  of  the  Rhine.  Now  Gudo,  Giubiasco  and  other 
places  near  this  route  have  yielded  the  excavator  a  thousand  or  more 
graves,  the  contents  of  which  have  supplied  evidence  that  the  district 
was  thickly  peopled  by  well-to-do  inhabitants  in  pre-Roman  times. 
This  is  considered  established  by  the  value  of  the  objects  found,  silver, 
amber,  and  coral.  The  progress  of  these  people  is  seen  to  have  been 
very  considerable  in  the  arts  of  life,  and  to  be  proved  especially  by 
the  almost  incredible  variety  of  their  fibulae  and  fine  workmanship. 
We  are  here  taken  back,  as  it  is  supposed,  to  the  first  stages  of  the 
Iron  Age,  and  we  find  a  striking  abundance  of  fictile  ware  and 
articles  of  bronze,  the  workmanship  of  which  is  said  to  point  to 
minerals  coming  from  Tuscany.     Thus  is  raised  the  question,  how 


THE   CELTIC    INSCRIPTIONS   OF   CISALPINE   GAUL     (57 

the  route  down  the  Valle  Mesolcina  to  Locarno  was  continued  south- 
wards. Without  going  into  (lotails  at  this  point,  it  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  it  cannot  have  passed  far  away  from  Ornavasso.  Doubt- 
less it  lay  near  enough  to  make  it  quite  possible  for  Mediterranean 
commodities  to  reach  that  ancient  place.  In  answer  to  a  question  of 
mine  on  this  point,  Dr.  Viollier  of  Zurich  writes  to  me  as  follows  : — 

'Au  sud  de  Locarno  la  route  pouvait  suivre  et  suivait  probablcment  les 
deux  rives  du  lac.  Le  trace  de  la  rive  droite  passait  tres  probablement 
k  Ornavasso  et  de  la  gagnait  la  pointe-sud  du  lac  ou  se  trouvaient  les 
necropoles  de  Sesto  Calende  et  toutes  les  petites  necropoles  connues 
sous  le  nom  de  Golasecca.  Une  chose  est  absolument  certaine  :  c'est 
qu'il  y  avait  des  rapports  tres  intimes  entre  les  populations  de 
Giubiasco  et  d'Ornavasso,  et  les  sepultures  contemporaines  de  ces 
deux  necropoles  renferment  un  mobilier  absolument  identique. — 
Depuis  la  pointe-sud  du  Lac  Majeur,  la  route  gagnait  tres  facilement 
Turin  et  la  rive  mediterraneenne  ou  Milan,  Bologne  et  le  territoire 
^trusque.' 

(21)  At  Ornavasso  I  met  with  bitter  disappointment ;  we  failed  to 
find  the  invaluable  vase  with  the  four  inscriptions ;  the  owner  and  a 
friend  of  his  kindly  searched  for  it  all  the  morning  of  April  14,  and 
so  did  I,  but  in  vain.  This  so  curtailed  my  time  there,  and  so  discon- 
certed me,  that  I  do  not  consider  that  I  did  anything  like  justice  to 
the  other  inscribed  vessels  there,  which  are  spread  over  several  rooms 
of  the  house.  They  were  no  longer  in  the  order  indicated  by  the 
numbers  on  them.  It  was  useless  to  call  for  number  '  So  and  So — the 
next — and  the  next '.  One  would  have  to  go  through  them  all  from 
beginning  to  end.  Moreover  there  are  some  specimens  there  which 
may  have  come  from  other  collections  than  the  two  described  in  the 
Bianchetti  volume ;  perhaps  they  are  things  rescued  from  the  navvies. 
At  any  rate  I  copied  one  graffito  which  I  could  not  identify  with  any 
of  the  inscriptions  mentioned  in  it.  It  runs  from  right  to  left,  and 
the  reading,  somewhat  difficult,  is  as  follows  : — 

IVM^'<11YXa>lV 

This  would  make  Vktuamasuiy  followed,  I  must  add,  by  two  characters 
which  I  failed  to  identify,  but,  as  their  aspect  seems  opposed  to  that 
of  the  other  letters,  they  are  probably  not  to  be  read  continuously 
with  them.  They  somewhat  remind  me  of  the  two  baffling  symbols 
preceding  Tmsiuilios  in  the  form  which  Pauli  gives  them  in  his  no.  23 
in  his  plate  I :  see  page  44  above.  As  for  the  lettering  of  the  rest  of  the 
line  I  wanted  at  first  to  read  the  third  letter  as  1(  =  a),  but  I  could  only 
make  it  3  (=  ^)  ;  the  second  V  has  its  first  limb  sufficiently  prolonged 

2  d5— 2 


68       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE  BRITISH   ACADEMY 

below  to  recall  a  Greek  Y  :  compare  the  first  V  of  Utonoiu  at  Andergia, 
p.  34  above.  The  branching  of  the  M  (=  w)  is  very  crude,  and  it 
much  resembles  that  of  the  Giubiasco  name  Amaseii,  p.  61  above. 

The  last-mentioned  form,  though  there  left  doubtful,  comes  in  useful 
here  in  another  way :  it  helps  to  divide  the  legend  before  us,  to  wit, 
into  Vletu  Amami,  with  Jmasui  dative  of  Amaso-s,  better  Ammasos 
from  Ambaso-s,  the  basis  of  Amhasnis,  for  Celtic  Ambasio-s,  and  of 
Amaseu  as  a  possible  dative  of  Am{b)aseo-s,  referred  to  above. 
The  next  question  is,  what  uletu  may  be.  Having  been  forced 
to  rule  out  ulatu,  one  is  led — I  may  say  driven— to  write  it  idedu 
and  identify  it  unhesitatingly  with  the  O.  Irish  word  Jled,  Welsh 
gzvled  '  a  feast,  a  banquet,  a  schmaus  \  Both  the  Irish  and  the 
Welsh  forms  are  feminine,  and  the  former  is  known  to  be  of  the  a 
declension,  but  as  that  and  the  o  declension  (masculine  and  neuter) 
have  been  encroaching  on  the  smaller  declensions  in  u  and  i,  I  have 
little  hesitation  in  thinking  that  our  uledu  proves  the  word  to  have 
originally  been  of  the  u  declension.  We  translate  accordingly  Uledu 
Am{b)asui  as  'A  feast  for  Am(b)asos'!  I  may  confess  that  when, 
considering  the  case  of  Luton  in  and  Baai  iu,  I  suggested  rendering 
them  '  A  feast  for  Lutus ! '  &c.,  I  had  no  notion  I  should  be  able  to 
produce  such  an  indubitable  parallel.  It  makes  up  in  some  measure 
for  the  disappointment  of  failing  to  discover  the  Latumaros  vase. 


IV 

There  remain  to  be  discussed  a  few  inscriptions  which  I  had 
not  at  first  intended  to  treat  as  a  group.  On  closer  study  of  them 
I  became  more  disposed  to  look  at  them  in  that  light :  at  any  rate  they 
point  to  three  definite  centres,  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Verona,  to  the 
Val  Sabbia  north-east  of  Brescia,  and  to  Voltino,  high  up  on  the  western 
bank  of  Lago  di  Garda.  In  a  word,  that  lake  may  be  regarded  as 
occupying  the  middle  of  the  region  to  which  the  inscriptions  point. 
At  present  the  data  are  wanting  to  prove  that  this  Celtic  region  of 
Lake  Garda  extended  itself  so  as  linguistically  to  touch  the  other 
Celtic  district  in  the  direction  of  Como  or  Lecco.  In  other  words, 
the  Garda  group  may  have  been  an  isolated  one ;  not  to  mention  the 
fact  that  the  neighbourhood  of  Sondrio  in  the  Val  Tellina  to  the 
east  of  the  northern  end  of  the  Lake  of  Como  shows  specimens  of 
a  linguistic  element  which  to  me  presents  the  appearance  of  not 
being  Celtic.  Fragments  of  inscriptions  in  what  appears  to  have 
been   the   same  non-Celtic  languaije  have  also  been    found   further 


THE  CELTIC    INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    G9 

south,  one  to  the  north  of  Lago  d'lseo  and  another  not  very  far  from 
the  southern  shore  of  that  lake :  see  Pauli's  nos.  27-9. 

1.  In  the  vicinity  of  Verona  a  small  vessel  was  found,  bearing 
from  right  to  left  the  graffito, 

vxavNo 

That  is,  read  the  other  way,  KoUuetu.  What  has  become  of  it 
I  do  not  know ;  but  it  was  Pauli's  no.  39,  and  in  his  plate  the  letters 
V I  n|  are  shown  cut  across  by  a  scratch,  which  cannot  have  been  part 
of  the  legend.  One  also  sees  an  irregular  little  hole  in  the  surface 
between  the  V  and  the  3»  which  was  likewise  due  to  accident;  it 
is  therefore,  I  presume,  not  to  be  considered  in  any  attempted  inter- 
pretation. I  mention  this  as  Professor  Danielsson  is  inclined  to 
divide  the  reading  into  Koliu  •  etu  (loc.  cit.,  p.  23).  I  prefer  to 
treat  the  letters  as  making  one  compound  name  to  be  analysed  into 
Koli-uetu. 

We  now  come  to  the  question  concerning  the  values  here  of  k 
and  ^ :  I  fix  them  as  k  and  d,  which  I  do  by  'jumping'  at  the  con- 
clusion that  what  we  have  here  as  a  personal  name  was  in  reality 
in  the  first  place  a  tree  name.  Compare  the  case  of  the  Welsh 
saint  who  has  left  his  name  Collen  '  hazel '  to  the  church  and  charm- 
ing vale  of  Llangollen  in  North  Wales :  see  also  Sapsiita,  p.  65 
above.  The  name  will  be  easier  to  recognize  when  written  Koli- 
uedu,  but  then  we  have  to  restore  the  i  of  the  Celtic  vidu  and 
Teutonic  vitu :  compare  Bilinos  and  BeUnos.  The  u  stem  vidu  is 
represented  by  the  Irish  ^vord.  Jid  (gen.  fedo,  feda)  '  wood ',  of  the  same 
declension,  Welsh  givyd  '  wood ',  Breton  gwez^  Welsh  singular  gwyden 
'  a  tree  **,  as  in  syhwyden  ^  *  a  fir-tree ',  Breton  gwezenn  '  a  tree  *,  Old 
H.  German  vitu^  A.-Saxon  wudu,  Eng.  wood :  see  Fick,  II.  280. 

It  now  remains   to  ascertain  what  tree  was  meant  by  Koli-iieduj 

^  Under  *soqo  '  resin '  Stokes  suggests  with  hesitation  (Fick,  II.  303,  304)  that 
Med.  Latin  sapus  '  a  pine  '  was  a  loan  from  Gaulish  *sapo-s  from  a  pre-Celtic  saqo-s, 
which  he  gives  also  as  soqo-.  From  the  Latin  form  sapus  he  derives  Med.  Breton 
sap  '  a  fir-tree ',  while  the  Mod.  Breton  snprenn,  plural  sapr,  he  traces  from  *«;^- 
preyi  by  a  process  of  popular  etymology,  which  neither  Ernault  nor  Henri  seems 
to  accept.  But  he  appears  to  regard  W^elsh  syb-wyd '  fir  '  and  the  sibuit  (gl.  abies) 
of  the  Cornish  Vocabulary  as  derived  directly  from  soqo-vidu  which  he  translates 
into  German  as  '  Harz-Baum  '.  But  Williams  in  his  Lexicon  Cornu-Britaimicum 
did  better  in  deriving  these  also  from  Latin  sapus,  together  with  tlie  later  Cornish 
saban,  zaban  '  a  fir-tree '.  The  compound  of  sap-us  with  Welsh  gwytt  would  have  to 
be  in  the  first  instance  seb-wyd,  where  the  obscuring  of  the  first  vowel  into  y  was 
regular,  especially  if  the  stress  was  on  the  next  syllable,  which  it  would  be  at  any 
rate  in  the  singular  syb-wyiten.  The  case  could  hardly  be  very  different  with  the 
Cornish  sib-uit  with  t  for  d. 


70        PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE  BRITISH   ACADEMY 

and  to  help  us  to  do  this  we  have  the  qualifying  element  Jcoli, 
which  recalls  the  Mod.  English  holly,  together  with  allied  forms  such 
as  hollin,  hollen,  with  the  same  meaning,  Old  English  holen,  holegn, 
which  is  represented  in  the  New  English  Dictionary  as  radically 
connected  with  O.  H.  German  hidis,  hicls,  whence  Mod.  German  and 
Dutch  hulst  '  holly ',  also  French  houx  with  the  same  signification. 
Compare  the  following  Celtic  forms : — Irish  ouilenn,  genitive  culinn 
(Stokes's  Gorman,  May  21,  gl.  4),  Welsh  celyn,  singular  celynnen — 
celynen  is  bad  spelling — Breton  quelenn,  '■lioux\  sing.  queUnneUy 
Cornish  Vocabulary  Txelin  (gl.  ulcia),  Williams's  celin,  sing,  celinen, 
presumably  for  celinnen.  Related  forms  in  Welsh  occur  in  the 
following:  —  Celynnog  Fawr  yn  Arfon  (now  usually  reduced  to 
Clymiog),  meaning  'the  Great  Holly  Grove  in  Arvon',  that  is, 
St.  Beuno's  Church  near  Carnarvon — the  Breton  and  Cornish  forms 
are  Jcelennek  and  celynnec ;  Celytmin  in  lAsin-gelynin  (locally  so 
pronounced)  also  in  Carnarvonshire  (Fisher  in  the  Lives  of  the  British 
Saints  enumerates  two  so  named,  s.v.  Celynin);  and  the  Book  of  Llan 
Ddv  (p.  275)  has  a  Lann  Celinni,  a  church  in  the  deanery  of  Archen- 
field  in  Herefordshire  (Fisher,  p.  105).  The  Story  of  Kulhwch  and 
01  wen  has  a  Kelin,  son  of  Caw,  whose  name,  like  the  Irish  Cuilend, 
Cullenn,  Cuilenn  (K.  Meyer's  Contributions  to  Irish  Lexicography, 
I.  550),  means  simply  '  holly '.  The  stem  of  the  Irish  word  is  given 
by  Stokes  (Fick,  II.  91)  as  kolenno-,  while  the  Welsh  seems  rather 
to  postulate  kolinno-  as  the  basis  of  the  modern  celyn  '  holly  \^ 

Now  if  we  compare  the  Celtic  and  the  Teutonic  forms,  we  find  for 
instance  that  kolenno-  and  the  O.  H.  German  hulis  seem  to  imply 

*  By  the  side  of  this  instance  of  vowel  change  one  may  place  tlie  following 
case  : — Welsh  has  a  word  celli  with  II  from  Id.  It  means  a  grove,  and  being 
feminine  is  mutated  into  gelli  after  the  article  ;  so  y  Gelli  '  the  Grove '  is  a  very 
common  name  of  farm-houses  in  Wales,  often  shortened  to  Gelli  alone.  It  was 
used  in  Cornwall  in  the  same  vvay,  but  there  celli  commonly  underwent  a  further 
change  into  cilli.  It  so  happens,  however,  that  West  Saxons  settling  in  Devon 
stereotyped  the  word  in  an  early  form,  to  wit,  that  of  colli  ;  and  in  the  basin  of 
the  Taw,  for  instance,  there  are  villages  called  Colli-bear  or  Colli-beer,  to  which 
the  family  of  our  colleague  Dr.  Fred.  C'onybeare  traces  its  name.  Its  history,  and 
that  of  the  corruption  of  colli-  into  coni-,  will  be  found  discussed  in  a  brochure 
published  this  year,  entitled  Conybeure  Wills  and  Administrations,  1563-1601,  by 
H.  Crawford  Conybeare,  M.A.,  of  the  Inner  Temple,  Barrister-at-law,  &c. 
Starting  from  the  word  colli  we  have  not  only  the  origin  of  celli,  but  we  are  also 
enabled  to  correct  the  article  in  Pick's  Dictionary,  II.  82,  headed  kai,det-  '  Holz  ', 
from  which  Stokes  derives  Welsh  celli  and  the  Irish  cuill  'wood,  forest',  dative 
caillid.  Instead  of  kaldet-  we  may  now  put  down  koldet-,  which  brings  us  nearer 
to  the  cognate  English  word  holt,  German  llofz.  I  may  mention,  by  the  way,  that 
the  Gelli,  the  Grove,  usually  contains  bushes  of  thorn,  elder-trees,  and  rowan-trees, 
originally  intended  perhaps  to  keep  elves  and  fairies  away  from  the  home. 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALHNE  GAUL    71 

a  common  stem  which  may  be  put  down  as  kuli-  or  kole-,  Aro/i-, 
with  a  meaning  suggestive  of  holly.  My  conjecture  is  that  we  have 
it  in  the  koli  of  koli-uedu^  koli-uidu,  which  accordingly  could  only 
mean  'holly  tree';  as  a  man's  name  the  nominative  was  probably 
Koliuidu-s,  but  was  liable  to  lose  the  final  sibilant.  The  idea  conveyed 
by  such  a  name  or  nickname  is  that  of  being  armed  at  every  point, 
like  the  holly.  As  hinted,  it  may  have  been  simplv  a  nickname,  or 
at  any  rate  in  the  first  instance  a  nickname. 

2.  To  the  north-east  of  Brescia,  and  some  distance  to  the  west  of 
Lago  di  Garda,  there  is  the  basin  known  as  the  Val  Sabbia,  in  which 
a  stone  was  found  with  two  words  inscribed  on  it.  It  is  now  in  the 
Civic  Museum  of  the  Roman  Period,  called  also  Museo  Patrio,  at 
Brescia,  and  reads  as  follows  in  Roman  capitals  : — 

DIEVPALA 
MIXVI 

It  is  given  in  the  C.  I.  L.,  V.  4897,  and  the  editor,  the  late  Piofessor 
Mommsen,  says  of  it — '  Integra  mihi  visa  est.  Fortasse  Raetica  magis 
quam  Latina.'  As  Mommsen  had  doubts  as  to  its  being  Latin  I  am 
encouraged  to  claim  it  as  Celtic.  I  have  already  (p.  17  above)  had 
my  say  about  the  name  Mimios,  of  which  we  probably  have  the 
genitive  here,  though  formally  the  dative  in  -id  may  not  be  out 
of  the  question.  For  that  would  be  M'uiuui,  of  which  the  spelling 
might  possibly  be  reduced  to  M I  N  V I .  But  in  favour  of  the  geni- 
tive is  the  fact  of  the  governing  noun  preceding,  whereas  pala  in 
the  Lugano  formula  with  the  dative,  follows,  as  in  Slaniai  Verkalai 
pala,  p.  -t  alx)ve.  The  other  vocable  seems  to  divide  itself  into  d'leu 
and  pala.  the  latter  being  probably  no  other  than  the  word  for  which 
the  meaning  of  grave  or  burial  place  has  already  been  conjectured: 
see  pp.  4,  5  above.  It  remains  to  identify  the  meaning  of  the  prefixed 
dku  :  this  recalls  the  Welsh  dieu  as  in  tridien.  Modern  tridiau  '  the 
space  of  three  days  ',  going  back  to  dkyii-.  Compare  also  d//zv  in  ludyic 
*  to-day',  Irish  in-diu  of  the  same  meaning,  which  is  mostly  prefixed 
(adverbially)  to  the  names  of  the  days  of  the  week  as  in  Welsh  dyxc  llun 
and  dyiilhtn  'on  Monday'  and  dyic  Azcst  'on  Lammas  Day,  the  first 
day  of  August '  (Evans's  Geiriadur,  s.  v.  dyzc),  literally  '  on  the  day  of 
Augustus '.  The  substantive  corresponding  to  these  adverbials  usually 
requires  the  cognate  word  dyd  (from  dfies),  as  in  dyd  Llun  '  Monday', 
dyd  Maicrth  'Tuesday",  dyd  Calan  Gaeaf  'the  Winter  Calends'. 
But  dyd  has  among  its  meanings  that  of  one's  day  or  lifetime,  time, 
age,  that  is,  a  prolonged  time.  It  is  probably  in  that  direction  that  we 
should  seek  the  explanation  of  dieu,  namely,  as  meaning  '  for  a  long 


72       PROCEEDINGS   OF   THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

time ',  just  as  the  Latin  word  diu,  which  I  would  treat  as  closely  akin,^ 
meant  '  long  (in  the  temporal  sense),  for  a  long  time '.  In  that  case 
the  inscription  would  mean  the  '  perpetual  or  permanent  grave  or 
burial  place  of  Minuos ',  probably  in  the  sense  that  the  plot  of  ground 
was  his  property  for  ever,  and  that  it  was  never  to  be  seized  or 
encroached  upon  by  an  alien. 

3.  VoLTiNo  is  a  village  a  little  south  of  Limone  far  up  on  the  western 
coast  of  Lake  Garda  :  there  in  the  church  tower  was  found  a  slab  of 
marble  bearing  an  inscription  which  is  in  two  languages.  It  is  now 
in  the  Mmeo  Patrio,  at  Brescia,  where  I  saw  it  in  1906.  My 
reading  has  been  given  in  the  C.  hisc.  of  France  and  Italy,  p.  65,  as 
follows: — 


TETVMVS 

Tetumus 

SEXTI 

Sexti 

DVGIAVA 

Dugiaua 

SAiXiADIS 

Sasadis 

XOW^^f^^CAM 

Tome  •  Ecaai 

OBAA^^Mf^VIH^ 

Obaa  •  Anatina 

I  will  not  repeat  the  remarks  I  then  made  to  the  Academy  as  to 
the  individual  letters,  or  remind  you  of  the  rash  conjectures  in  which 
I  indulged  on  that  occasion.  The  former  stand  but  needless  to  say 
the  latter  do  not,  and  I  may  mention  that  my  chief  mistake  was  to 
assume  the  fourth  letter  of  the  last  line  to  be  a  lambda,  which  was  also 
Pauli's  way  of  looking  at  it  in  his  no.  30.  I  am  now  convinced  that 
it  was  meant  as  a  Latin  A,  purposely  formed  different  from  the  A 
immediately  preceding  it,  for  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  aa  of  Obaa, 
as  I  now  take  them  to  be,  are  most  carefully  made  different  from  one 
another,  for  they  are  the  Latin  ones  A  A  ;  and  in  the  fifth  line  we 
have  Latin  A  and  Etruscan  ^  next  one  another.  Add  to  this  couple 
of  instances  the  Ladenburg  vessel  with  haai  with  the  two  aa'*  made 
to  incline  awkwardly  from  one  another,  N  A,  which  was  evidently 
meant  to  answer  the  same  purpose.'^     They  will  come  under  notice 

^  This  was  the  kind  of  derivation  given  to  the  Latin  diu  by  the  late  Prof.  Osthoif 
in  the  Indogermanische  Forsehungen,  V.  284-7:,  while  >V'alde  s.  v.  contests  some 
of  OstliofF's  details  and  prefers  deriving  diu  from  dtidum  '  a  short  time  ago, 
formerly '  ;  but  his  argument  fails  to  be  convincing.  Brugmann  renders  diil 
literally  '  bei  Tage ',  and  adds  that  it  is  from  *dioui,  if  not  from  *dieu  :  see  his 
Grundnss,  I,  II.  910. 

^  I  cannot  at  present  make  use  of  the  Tessereti  Aai,  as  I  have  read  A  A  j  while 
I  find  tliat  Giussani  makes  them  AAj  as  may  be  seen  in  his  Tasscrcte,  j).  8  ;  and 
the  A'^  of  uainiti  is  altogether  too  uncertain  :  see  pp.  22,  23  above. 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS  OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    7;5 

under  the  next  numeral :  see  also  pp.  5,  14,  39,  63,  75  of  this  paper. 
The  non-Latin  character  M  was  so  familiar  to  the  inscriber  that  he 
has  introduced  it  here  in  the  midst  of  letters  of  the  Roman 
alphabet. 

Taking  the  Latin  legend  first,  I  render  it,  '  Tetumus  son  of  Sextus 
(and)  Dugiaua  daughter  of  Sasa',  better  Sassa.  The  form  Saiadis 
probably  renders  a  Celtic  genitive  Sassad-os,  the  nominative  corre- 
sponding to  which  would  be  built  Sassad-s  and  rubbed  down  regularly 
into  Sassa^  which  we  seem  to  detect  in  one  or  more  of  the  instances 
of  a  masculine  Sasa  cited  by  Holder.  One  of  them,  in  the  Phil- 
harmonic Museum  at  Verona,  comes  from  Este,  and  another,  on  a  tile 
found  at  Turin,  is  supposed  to  be  in  the  museum  of  that  city,  though 
Mommsen  failed  to  find  it :  see  C.  /.  L.,  V.  2710,  8110.  428.  Neither, 
however,  is  in  point  if  the  Corpus  reading,  Sasae  or  Sasa^y  is  correct : 
in  both  instances  Holder  gives  Sasa,  without  alluding  to  the  difference, 
as  far  as  I  have  noticed. 

Concerning  Dugiaua,  also  Dugiauua,  see  my  paper  on  the  C.  Insc. 
of  Gaul,  p.  4.  Tetumus  probably  stands  for  a  Celtic  Tettumo-s  formed 
with  the  affix  -u-nio-s  (fem.  -u-ma)  of  which  Holder  has  collected 
instances,  while  we  probably  have  the  stem  of  the  word  represented 
in  such  names  as  Tettus,  Tetta,  Tetto,  Tettonius,  derived  from  some 
form  akin  to  Hato-s,  whence  Welsh  tat,  tad,  Breton  tat  *  father  ', 
the  medial  consonant  being  sharpened,  which  is  common  enough  in 
the  case  of  hypocoristic  formations. 

As  already  suggested  I  now  treat  the  two  last  lines  as  reading 
Tome  •  Ecaai  \  Obaa  •  A  natina  |  ,  which  seems  to  have  meant  '  To 
or  for  Toma  daughter  of  Ecaaios,  Obaa  Anatina',  that  is  to  say, 
Obaa  Anatina  gives  it  to,  or  has  it  put  up  for,  Toma  daughter 
of  Ecaaios.  There  is  no  suggestion  of  any  relation  between 
the  Celtic  legend  and  the  one  in  Latin.  All  one  can  say  is  that 
possibly  the  persons  commemorated  were  members  of  one  and  the 
same  family,  but  that  it  was  thought  needless  to  indicate  that  fact  on 
the  monument.  Otherwise  it  would  look  as  if  Obaa  had  simply 
seized  on  a  slab  of  marble  already  inscribed,  and  put  it  up  to  the 
memory  of  a  woman  whom  she  was  interested  to  honour.  Against 
that  is  the  fact  that  no  care  was  taken  to  prevent  the  legend 
from  appearing  continuous  from  the  first  letter  to  the  last,  unless 
the  dotted  X  be  regarded  as  evidence  to  the  contrary ;  but  its  signifi- 
cance, if  any,  is  reduced  by  the  use  of  the  same  dots  afterwards  in  the 
middle  of  the  last  word. 

As  to  the  mixture  of  letters  in  the  two  hvst  lines  we  find  among 
the   characters  of  the  North  Etruscan  alphabet  the    Latin  letters, 


74        PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

A,  A,  B,  C,  and  perhaps  one  may  treat  as  Roman  the  use  of  the  twigs, 
not  for  :s,  but  for  stops.  In  any  case  with  the  lambda  and  the  zeta 
goes  the  reason  for  Pauli's  associating  this  inscription  with  that  of 
Tresivio  near  Sondrio  in  the  Val  Tellina  and  others  found  near  Lago 
d'lseo ;  see  his  nos.  27-9,  pp.  14,  15. 

We  now  come  to  the  proper  names :  I  can  make  nothing  of  the  first, 
as  Towe  or  Touue,  and  Tome  can  hardly  be  the  dative  of  a  Christian 
T(h)omas.  Perhaps  we  may  connect  Tome  with  a  man's  name  Tommos, 
well  established  at  Cittanuova  on  the  west  coast  of  Istria,  and 
also  at  Buje  in  the  same  neighbourhood  (C.  /.  L.,  V.  381,  417 )  ; 
it  probably  follows  that  the  name  here  would  be  more  correctly 
written  Tomme,  the  dative  of  Tomma.  In  his  Celtic  Declension 
Stokes  gives  Gaulish  reda  *a  chariot'  making  in  the  dative  ^rede 
(red'i  ?) ' ;  both  are  now  established,  thus  Br^Kr^craixa  is  in  the  dative 
BTjAr/o-a/xt  (loc.  cit.,  p.  60,  and  C.  Ins.  of  France  and  Italy^  p.  13), 
but  as  the  oldest  dative  fern,  has  been  found  to  have  been 
in  -ai  or  ~ai  (p.  5  above)  the  intermediate  stage  between  -ai  and  -i 
must  have  been  e,  which  we  have  here  in  the  case  of  Tom{rn)e.  Ecaai 
is  probably  the  genitive  of  Ecaaios,  a  name  spelt  Eccaios  on  bronze 
coins  of  the  Senones,  which  have  been  found  in  Paris,  Rheims,  Catenoy 
(Oise),  Pommiers  (Aisne),  and  Compiegne,  and  on  silver  coins  of  the 
Transpadan  Boii.  Holder  cites  besides  Eccaios  such  related  forms  as 
Ecco{-h-iga),  Eccius,  Eccia,  and  Ecco.  They  are  possibly  derived 
from  eqiio-s  '  horse '  with  a  hypocoristic  sharpening  of  eguo-  into 
eqquo;  whence  eqqo-^  ecco- :  compare  maqa-s  '  son '  often  in  Ogam 
as  the  genitive  maqqi,  mace  in  manuscript  Irish,  while  Welsh  map, 
mob  comes  from  ^mapo-s  =  maqo-s,  not  maqqo-s. 

Next  comes  the  feminine  name  Ohaa  which  seems  to  claim  kinship 
with  *obno-s,  whence  Welsh  qfn  '  fear '  and  Ir.  dman,  uaman ; 
Holder  also  cites  a  man's  name  Ohnos  from  a  Celtic  bronze  coin,  on 
the  authority  of  Muret  &  Chabouillet,  6310 ;  not  to  mention  Oha 
and  Onoba  from  Spain,  together  with  Obavus  and  Obienia  from  Nar- 
bonne.  As  we  have  Ecaai  here  with  Eccaios  on  the  coins,  we  may 
treat  Obaa  as  a  probable  spelling  of  Oba  ;  the  data,  however,  do  not 
enable  me  to  elicit  the  aignification  of  the  name.  Anatina  would  seem 
to  be  an  epithet  or  surname,  which  resolves  itself  in  the  first  instance 
into  An-atina.  The  prefix  an  in  most  Celtic  proper  names  has  the 
intensitive  force  of  '  very  or  very  like'.  The  compound  would  mean 
*  very  Attn-'';  but  what  athi-  meant  I  cannot  say.  Holder  cites  a 
name  Attinns  or  Atinns  :  one  of  those  who  bore  it  was  a  potter,  who 
could  not  decide  which  he  preferred,  the  spelling  with  t  or  that 
with  tt.    See  C.  I.L.^  XIII.  10010.  197,  where  we  have  Atinns  stamped 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS  OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    75 

four  times  on  a  dish  of  black  pottery  traced  to  Saarlouis  on  the 
Saar  in  Rhenish  Prussia,  and  thrice  on  one  traced  to  Andernach, 
now  in  the  museum  at  Bonn.  The  operator  usually  repeated  him- 
self until  he  got  a  stamp  which  he  deemed  satisfactory.  The 
feminine  of  Atinus  was  doubtless  Atina.  Holder  has  no  Atinios  or 
Atinia  as  a  personal  name,  but  he  cites  a  feminine  noun  afi/»a  used  by 
Columella  in  his  Res  Rtistica,  V.  6. 2,  for  one  kind  of  elm  as  follows  : — 
*  Ulmorum  duo  esse  genera  convenit,  Gallicum  et  vernaculum ;  illud 
atinia,  hoc  nostras  dicitur.'  This  brings  us  to  a  tree,  and  so  does  the 
ancient  Irish  proper  name  Ethne  or  Eithne,  which  seems  to  be,  phono- 
logically  speaking,  the  exact  equivalent  of  atinia.  On  the  other  hand 
Ethne  does  not  mean  any  kind  of  elm,  but  appears  to  be  identical  in 
etymology  with  the  common  noun  eithne  fern.,  which  Dinneen  defines 
as  '  a  kernel ;  fruit,  produce ;  a  female  personal  name,  now  anglicized 
into  Annie  in  Ulster'.  Eithne  as  the  name  of  a  river,  that  is,  doubtless, 
of  a  river  goddess,  becomes  Innt/,  as  for  example,  in  the  county  of 
Westmeath.  The  data  do  not  enable  us  to  clear  up  the  seeming  dis- 
crepancy of  meaning,  and  though  Ethne  is  Atinia  rather  than  Atina,  I 
should  guess  that  An-atina  meant  approximately  '  very  like  a  kernel ', 
'sweet  as  a  nut ',  unless  one  should  prefer  an  interpretation  that  would 
make  the  lady  into  a  '  nut-brown  maid  \ 

4.  The  vessel  with  BAAI  -IV  impressed  on  it  has  already  been 
mentioned  in  connexion  with  the  Ornavasso  one  with  Lutou-iu 
(p.  63  above).  The  stamping  of  the  former  vessel  four  times  with 
the  same  seal  may  be  compared  with  the  case  of  the  potter  Atinus, 
which  has  been  mentioned  in  passing.  In  the  present  instance  the 
photograph  shows  only  one  of  the  four  impressions  as  completely 
legible.  But  there  is,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  a  difference :  I  am 
inclined  to  regard  baai  as  a  common  noun,  and  to  translate  Baai  •  iu 
as  *  A  feast  for  battle  ' !  In  other  words  the  vessel  is  supposed  to  say 
'  I  bring  you  a  feast  to  prepare  you  for  the  fray '.  The  syntax 
will  stand,  I  think,  even  when  the  words  are  construed  in  that  way. 

Whence  the  little  inscription  in  question  reached  Ladenburg  in 
South  Germany  it  is  impossible  to  say  ;  but  the  question  here  is 
rather  where  it  was  stamped,  or,  more  exactly,  where  in  Cisalpine 
Gaul.  The  formula  might  be  said  to  suggest  the  district  in  which 
the  Ornavasso  vase  had  Lutou  •  iii  scratched  on  it,  wherever  that 
was.  But  a  still  stronger  claim  for  comparison  presents  itself  in  the 
case  of  the  Tesserete  tombstone  bearing  the  words  Aai-pala.  Here 
the  dative  feminine  Aai  is  exactly  parallel  to  Baai — better  baai — 
and  is  in  its  spelling  peculiar  in  the  same  way.  The  parallel  extends 
still  further,  namely,  to  the    probable   etymology  of  the   word   as 


76       PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

a  possible  reduction  of  bagd,  from  the  same  stem  as  Irish  bdig,  fern. 
'  conflict,  battle '  (Fick,  II.  160).  Compare  Aa  and  Irish  dg  '  battle ', 
and  see  p.  14  above,  the  chief  difference  being  that  A  a  has  to  be  treated 
as  a  woman''s  name. 

There  is,  however,  a  consideration  which  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  to 
wit,  that  both  those  inscriptions  run  from  right  to  left  in  North 
Etruscan  letters,  while  the  one  in  the  Carlsruhe  Museum  runs  in  the 
contrary  direction  in  ordinary  Latin  capitals.  This  appears  to  imply 
that  it  belongs  to  a  later  time.  Close  as  the  foregoing  parallels  appear, 
there  is  another  which  seems  to  me  still  more  convincing,  namely, 
that  with  the  Voltino  bilingual,  with  the  same  trick  of  distinguishing 
the  two  a's  (p.  72  above),  in  addition  to  showing  the  same  direction 
of  writing.  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  the  Ladenburg  vessel  was 
stamped — let  us  say  made  and  stamped — somewhere  in  the  region 
around  the  Garda  Lake. 

5.  The  ToDi  bilingual  now  in  the  Gregorian  Museum  of  Etruscan 
antiquities  in  the  Vatican,  has  been  discussed  at  length  in  the 
Academy  paper  on  the  C.  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy,  pp.  69-74. 
That  being  so  I  need  hardly  go  into  the  details.  There  is  no  ques- 
tion of  the  inscription  coming  from  Cisalpine  Gaul,  but  the  men  who 
had  it  put  up  probably  came  from  there,  and  in  that  sense  it  belongs 
to  the  present  list  of  inscriptions.  It  was  possibly  in  the  course  of 
a  raid  southwards  that  Ategnatos  fell  near  Todi.  The  whole  reads 
as  if  he  were  one  of  the  important  men  of  the  expedition,  possibly  the 
leader.  Is  it  past  all  hope  that  some  reference  to  such  an  expedition 
to  the  banks  of  the  Tiber  may  yet  be  found  in  historical  documents  ? 
An  alternative  view  is  possible,  namely  that  a  small  community  of 
Celts  from  Cisalpine  Gaul  were  settled  at  Todi.  This  however  would 
also  require  to  be  supported  by  historical  evidence.  The  inscrip- 
tions, which  are  in  two  languages,  read,  Celtic  and  Latin  alike, 
from  left  to  right ;  so  they  can  hardly  be  reckoned  among  our  earliest 
lapidary  documents.  This  reference  to  them  I  append  to  the  Garda 
group  chiefly  as  a  matter  of  convenience,  to  await  a  hint  from  the 
historians  as  to  the  origin  of  Ategnatos  and  his  companions. 

This  brings  to  a  close  my  notes  on  some  seventy  inscriptions  of  various 
kinds  and  of  different  degrees  of  importance.  My  paper  has  grown  too 
long  for  me  to  end,  as  I  had  intended,  with  a  brief  account  of  the 
present  state  of  the  question  of  Celto-Ligurian  ethnology  and  language. 
Those  who  are  more  directly  interested  in  the  inscriptions  themselves 
will  be  more  pleased  to  hear  of  a  recently  discovered  epitaph  of 
importance.    My  notes  on  it  are  appended,  together  with  photographs. 


THE   CELTIC   INSCRIPTIONS   OF  CISALPINE   GAUL    77 

That  last  word  reminds  me  that  a  little  explanation  may  be  neces- 
sary here  concerning  the  photographs  referred  to  in  the  body  of  thi« 

paper : — 

1.  The  photographs  kindly  procured  for  me  by  Dr.  Jecklin,  of  Chur, 
have  already  been  mentioned  :  they  refer  to  the  printed  matter  on 
pp.  4,  8,  17,  and  32 ;  also  to  p.  19,  where  I  forgot  to  state  that  the 
Alkouinos  stone  is  one  of  those  at  Chur. 

2.  The  photograph  of  the  Komoneos  stone  from  Stabbio,  p.  18,  is 
one' of  two  kindly  presented  to  me  by  Dr.  C.  Vicenzi,  the  learned 
director  of  the  Castello  Sforzesco  in  Milan. 

3.  The  photographs  to  illustrate  the  Giubiasco  inscriptions  (pp.  23- 
31  above)  were,  as  already  mentioned,  sent  to  me  by  Dr.  Viollier  of 
the  Zurich  Landesmuseum. 

4.  The  photograph  of  the  Briona  stone  was  presented  me  by  Signor 
Morandi,  director  of  the  Civic  Museum  of  Novara,  to  whom  I  was 
introduced  by  the  Cav.  Cesare  Poma-one  out  of  many  mstances  of 
the  invaluable  help  which  he  has  rendered  to  me.  It  is  neither 
gentleman^s  fault  that  the  photograph  is  of  little  use  for  the  details 
of  the  legend,  or  that  a  slab  of  cement  figures  in  the  picture,  which  is 
introduced  only  to  show  the  outlines  of  the  stone  and  the  general 
arrangement  of  the  lettering  of  this  important  epitaph :  see  p.  46  abo^•e 

5  The  photograph  to  illustrate  the  Carcegna  inscription,  p.  57 
above,  is  a  copy  of  Dr.  Lattes's  plate,  reproduced  here  with  his  kind 
permission  :  it  gives  two  views  of  the  inscribed  vase. 

6  References  have  been  made  repeatedly  to  the  photographs  in 
Giussani^s  Tesserete  and  the  Rivista,  which  he  edits.  Through  these 
and  in  many  other  ways,  he  has  by  his  energy  and  courtesy  placed  me 
under  a  heavy  debt  of  gratitude. 


APPENDIX 

The  Vergiate  Stone 

On  the  20tli  of  March  of  this  year  Dr.  Elia  Lattes,  to  whom 
reference  has  already  been  made  more  than  once  as  a  well-known 
archaeologist,  sent  me  news  of  the  discovery  of  another  ancient 
inscription  of  the  kind  that  interested  me.  Dr.  Lattes  belongs  to 
the  R.  Istituto  Lombardo  di  Scienze  e  Lettere  at  Milan :  the  card 
stated  that  his  friend  the  Comm.  Francesco  Novati,  professor  at  that 
institute  and  president  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Lombardy,  had 
sent  him  word  that  a  leading  pupil  of  his,  a  Signor  Giorgio  Nicodemi, 
had  recently  secured  for  the  museum  of  his  native  town  of  Gallarate 
a  large  inscribed  stone.  The  slab  measured  2™  23  long  by  0™  70  broad, 
of  mica  schist,  grey  and  friable,  which  had  been  unexpectedly  dis- 
interred early  in  February  at  Vergiate  about  a  kilometre  from  the 
well-known  little  chapel  of  S.  Gallo.  Dr.  Lattes  suggested  that  for 
further  information  I  should  write  direct  to  Professor  Novati :  I  did 
so  without  delay,  and  I  received  at  once  a  welcome  photograph,  from 
which  I  anticipated  that  the  inscription  would  prove  both  important 
and  difficult.  Unfortunately  the  stone  had  been  more  or  less  damaged 
on  the  way  to  Gallarate  from  the  rising  ground  where  it  was  found, 
some  80  centimetres  below  the  surface  of  the  meadow  covering  it. 
Nor  was  that  all,  for  it  appeared  that  there  was  an  ancient  fracture 
which  had  occurred  before  it  was  buried  in  the  spot  where  it  was 
discovered.  At  all  events  with  the  materials  which  I  then  had  before 
me  I  could  not  establish  a  reliable  text,  and  I  expressed  a  hope  that 
Dr.  Lattes  would,  if  possible,  publish  an  account  of  the  stone,  together 
with  all  the  materials  available.  At  length  he  sent  me  the  good  news 
that  he  was  putting  his  notes  together  for  a  communication  to  the 
Lombardic  Institute.  The  meeting  at  which  he  read  his  paper  took 
place  on  April  24.  As  soon  as  it  issued  from  the  press  he  sent  me 
a  copy ;  it  will  be  found  in  the  proceedings  of  the  R.  Istituto  Lombardo 
di  Scienze  e  Lettere  (Pavia,  1913),  vol.  XLVL  414-23. 

The  materials  referred  to  by  Dr.  Lattes  consist  of  the  following 
documents : — 

(1)  A  large  pencil  sketch  of  the  inscription  taken  by  Sig.  Nicodemi 
before  the  stone  was  carried  away  to  Gallarate :  on  the  next  page, 
devoted  to  his  sketches,  it  is  represented  by  that  marked  A. 

(2)  A  smaller  drawing  also  taken  by  him  then  and  represented 
by  the  sketch  marked  B. 


79 


iT^^WBMnWSiy 


^MI^JSMMHSHU 


D 


.JW3M 


Sketches  op  the  Vergiate  Inscription  by 


SiGNOR  G,  NicoDEMi  I  scc  p.  78  et  seq. 


80       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

(3)  A  pencil  copy  of  the  inscription  after  it  had  reached  Gallarate, 
taken  with  very  great  care  by  Sig.  Nicodemi  and  represented  here 
by  C. 

(4)  Another  copy  taken  by  him  of  the  more  dubious  part  of  the 
legend  with  the  aid  of  a  carta  oliata,  and  represented  by  D. 

(5)  The  photograph  (E)  in  plate  VIII,  the  cliche  of  Avhich  has,  at 
the  request  of  Dr.  Lattes,  been  lent  me  by  the  Istituto  Lombardo, 
together  with  the  paper  originals  of  C  and  D. 

(6)  Lastly,  the  photograph  (F)  which  was  sent  me  at  the  beginning 
by  Professor  Novati. 

With  the  help  of  these  materials  I  was  enabled  to  make  out  the 
reading  of  the  entire  inscription.  But  that  is  not  all,  for  Dr.  Lattes, 
though  not  strong  in  health,  was  able  early  in  May  to  go  to  Gallarate 
to  see  the  stone  himself,  and  to  do  that  in  the  company  of  another 
well-known  archaeologist.  Dr.  B.  Nogara  of  the  Etruscan  Museum 
in  the  Vatican,  whose  name  I  have  mentioned  to  you  on  another 
occasion.  Dr.  Lattes  has  conveniently  appended  to  his  paper  of  the 
24th  of  April  a  brief  account  of  the  examination  which  he  and  his 
friend  made  of  the  stone  on  May  10 ;  he  gives  also  a  most  interesting 
series  of  notes  by  Sig.  Nicodemi  as  to  the  monument,  to  Vergiate, 
and  to  the  neighbourhood,  which  that  gentleman  knows,  nobody 
better. 

The  reader  of  a  Celtic  inscription  in  the  North  Etruscan  alphabet, 
has  three  things  to  keep  in  view — the  forms  of  the  letters  used,  the 
phonetic  values  to  assign  to  them,  and  the  meaning  of  what  they  spell. 
I  shall  try  to  confine  the  next  few  notes  to  the  letters,  regardless  of 
phonetics  and  signification.  At  the  outset  I  am  pleased  to  be  able  to 
say  that  the  reading  I  had  guessed  coincideswith  that  of  Dr.  Lattes  and 
Dr.  Nogara,  except  in  the  case  of  the  fourth  word  alone :  that  is,  we 
agree  absolutely  in  four  out  of  the  six  words.  The  writing  follo\\s 
a  boustrophedon  arrangement  on  what  appears  at  first  sight  a  mere 
ribbon  pattern  of  uniform  width ;  but  on  further  scrutiny  the  ribbon 
is  found  to  have  been  very  crudely  assimilated  to  the  form  of  some 
kind  of  eel.  The  head  narrows  into  a  point,  and  a  little  behind  the 
narrowing  on  the  left  side  is  seen  a  sort  of  a  rhomboid  /.../>  ^'^^ 
opposite  it,  on  the  right  side,  is  a  similar  appendage,  except  that  the 
middle  line  is  not  visible  in  the  photograph.  The  two  seem  to  be 
crude  representations  of  the  animal's  gills  at  the  instant  of  making 
a  stroke,  so  to  say,  to  propel  itself.  I  may  add  that  a  zoological 
friend  of  mine  to  whom  I  showed  the  photograph  at  once  detected 
one  of  the  beast's  eyes :  it  is  the  right  eye,  and  it  lies  almost  on  the 
outline  of  the  head.    In  the  next  place  the  whole  of  the  boustrophedon 


APPENDIX  81 

bend  shows  the  ridge  of  its  back  bristling  with  scores — not  letters — 
intended  to  recall  the  eel's  dorsal  fins.  Lastly  and  unfortunately,  the 
tail  of  our  beast  was  broken  off  in  the  ancient  fracture,  and  with  it 
might  have  gone  a  few  letters.  But  there  is  so  much  of  the  space 
after  the  last  letter  left  intact  that  one  would  have  expected  to  find 
a  portion  of  a  letter  following  to  be  still  visible,  had  there  ever  been 
any  more  writing  there.  The  two  archaeologists  arrive  at  the  same 
conclusion,  that  there  never  were  any  more  letters — ^alcun  cliiaro 
segno  di  altri  elementi' :  see  Lattes,  p.  419. 

The  unrounded  letters  are  about  5|  inches  high,  some  a  little  under 
5  and  others  a  little  over  6.  The  first  group  make  :|V>I-43'1  or 
Pelkui.  The  characters  here  call  for  no  remark.  The  next  group 
runs  as  follows  i  V3X1^  A|  VO'ls  that  is  Pruiamiteu;  but  there 
are  one  or  two  remarks  to  make,  for  example  the  a  looks  at  first  sight 
like  A  with  a  cross  stroke  passing  right  through  both  the  limbs  almost 
to  the  vertical  lines  of  the  next  letter  on  either  side,  but  more  especially 
on  the  side  opposite  the  reader's  left  hand.  All  this,  however,  does 
not  cover  the  whole  of  the  letter,  for  it  appears  in  the  photographs 
to  be  provided  also  with  the  short  middle  stroke  of  A,  and  we  may 
add  that  this  and  the  other  instances  of  this  letter  in  the  inscription 
have  the  second  limb  gently  curved  :  in  fact  its  shape,  a  bit  exaggerated, 
is  this,  "^,  and  we  have  it  even  plainer  in  the  next  word,  but  outside 
the  Vergiate  inscription  it  does  not  occur,  as  far  as  I  have  noticed, 
anywhere  else  in  our  inscriptions.  The  next  letter  is  a  good  m  of 
five  joints,  that  is,  of  the  oldest  type  found  in  the  district :  for  other 
instances  see  pp.  15,  18,  22,  and  perhaps  27,  above.  The  next  letter, 
which  I  took  to  be  i ,  and  to  be  an  error  on  the  part  of  the  inscriber 
for  I,  had  attracted  Sig.  Nicodemi,  who  insisted  on  reading  I,  his 
explanation  being  that  the  inscriber  had  originally  made  three  points, 
but  had  afterwards  tried  to  correct  himself  by  connecting  the  points  : 
his  account  is  practically  accepted  by  the  two  savants.  See  pp.  415, 
419,  where  their  reading  is  pruiamiteu. 

The  next  word  is  :3X|C3-^>I,  that  is  karite,  and  it  covers  nearly 
the  whole  bend  of  the  boustrophedon.  The  inscriber  made  the  second 
letter  like  the  fifth  of  Pruiamiteu ;  but  he  had  not  considered  precisely 
the  bend  of  the  ribbon,  and  he  accordingly  did  not  get  the  correct 
angle  which  the  vertical  of  his  -^  should  have  made  with  the  inside 
groove,  so  the  second  limb  had  to  be  prolonged  downwards  more  than 
in  Pruiamiteu.  Add  to  this  that  the  long  limb  is  cut  across  near  its 
lower  end  by  a  horizontal  groove  which  reaches  the  vertical  of  the  Q  : 
that  groove  appears  to  have  been  the  result  of  the  inscriber's  tool 
slipping  almost  at  a  tangent  when  he  was  busied  with  the  bend  in  the 

vj  2  D  6 


82        PROCEEDINGS   OF   THE    BRITISH    ACADEMY 

groove  delimiting  the  inscription  on  the  inner  side.  Lastly,  the  tags 
of  the  3  look  at  first  sight  as  if  clean  severed  from  the  backbone  of 
that  letter,  but  on  close  inspection  it  proves  to  be  a  trick  of  illusion 
which  the  eye  sometimes  plays  on  its  imvvary  owner. 

Next  comes  the  word  which  is  the  crux  of  the  inscription  :  it  begins 
at  the  latter  corner,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  of  the  bend  in  the  outlines,  and 
to  the  best  of  my  judgement  it  reads  i^oVVh  ^^^^^  is  iniios  or 
izvos.  On  these  letters  I  have  the  following  remarks  to  make.  The 
I  at  first  looks  as  if  produced  through  the  boundary  groove,  but  that, 
I  think,  is  not  really  the  case.  What  happened  is  that  one  of  the 
scores  of  the  dorsal  fins  of  the  beast  started  from  a  point  near  that 
reached  by  the  top  of  the  I,  but  not  quite.  The  next  letter  seems  to 
be  a  V  with  its  first  limb  vertical  and  its  second  limb  gently  curved. 
The  next  letter  was  also  a  V  of  the  same  formation  as  far  as  concerns 
the  perpendicularity  of  its  first  limb  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  say 
whether  the  second  half  of  the  V  was  curved  or  not  as  the  upper  part 
of  it  is  gone.  The  lower  part  was  detected  by  Sig.  Nicodemi,  as  will 
be  seen  in  his  sketches  C  and  D,  especially  the  latter.  That  when 
imdamaged  the  second  limb  passed  up  to  its  proper  height  behind 
and  above  the  little  circular  O  is  rendered  highly  probable  by  the  low 
position  of  that  letter,  which  would  otherwise  have  been  placed  in  the 
middle  :  compare  the  instances  to  be  seen  on  pp.  8, 14,  15,  17, 18,  22 
above :  the  same  central  position  is  usually  given  also  to  the  angular 
O.  The  two  V's  would  seem  to  have  been  joined  together  at  the  top. 
After  the  O  comes  an  $  which  was  made  out  by  Sig.  Nicodemi,  and 
I  can  now  detect  it  in  the  photographs,  though  I  should  probably  not 
have  done  so  had  he  not  pointed  it  out.  To  be  strictly  consistent  it 
should  have  been  not  $  but  ^  in  lettering  directed  towards  the  left ; 
but  in  these  inscriptions  5  is  a  thing  that  looks  both  ways.  See 
instances  of  S  on  pp.  4,  8,  18,  24,  45,  46,  60,  and  of  ^  on  pp.  19,  42, 
44,  57,  60,  61,  64.  After  the  $  Sig.  Nicodemi  shows  in  sketch 
D  that  he  detected  a  vertical  mark,  and  I  think  the  photographs  suggest 
the  usual  punctuation,  while  Drs.  Lattes  and  Nogara  read  I  and  run 
the  lettering  on  to  the  next  word,  making  altogether  inosikalite,  if 
I  rightly  understand  them.  To  put  it  otherwise,  they  would  read 
Inosi  or  else  Imosi  for  what  I  think  must  be  I W  O  S :  ;  'ill  three 
readings  seem  to  imply  a  slight  crowding  where  :  or  I  should  come, 
as  if  the  stop  or  the  I  had  been  forgotten  and  inserted  afterwards.  To 
begin  with  the  differences  between  our  readings  :  if  m  is  to  be  thought 
of,  it  must  be  an  m  like  Latin  M  against  which  the  other  very  different 
^1  affords  a  presumption.  Neither  would  N  be  exactly  the  form  of 
that  letter  which  one  would  expect  here.      In  the  case  of  M  we  may 


APPENDIX  88 

remark  (counting  backward)  that  it  would  lack  its  second  limb,  and 
that  the  photographs  make  it  impossible  to  suppose  that  to  have  ever 
been  there.  On  the  other  hand  there  is  a  serious  difficulty  of  another 
kind  which  forces  me  to  reject  both  M  and  N,  and  this  is  that  neither 
letter  would  cover  the  oblique  line  near  the  little  O  or  fill  the  space  in 
which  it  occurs.  The  surface  of  the  stone  at  this  spot  seems  to  have 
been  bruised,  and  Sig.  Nicodemi's  evidence  in  C  and  D  becomes  of 
capital  importance,  and  establishes  a  condition  which  the  two  V's 
satisfy.  On  the  data  before  me  I  should  say  that  the  only  other 
possible  reading  would  be  >IV,  that  is  to  say,  id. 

The  next  word  seems  to  read  :  3  X  I'J'^'I,  that  is  halite,  but  I  only 
accept  the  two  first  letters  on  trust.  I  fancy  I  can  see  their  forms  iu 
the  photographs,  but  I  am  not  sure  enough  of  their  precise  outlines 
to  control  Sig.  Nicodemi's  sketches  as  represented  in  C  and  D.  The 
exact  shape  of  the  a  eludes  me,  but  if  I  have  seized  the  right  points 
in  the  photograph  it  is  a  straggling  big  letter  having  two  cross-bars 
right  through  both  limbs,  the  upper  one  being  drawn  sloping  down- 
wards towards  the  reader's  right  hand,  though  without  meeting  the 
other  and  lower  bar.  But  the  photographs  prompt  me  to  ask  why 
it  is  so  far  from  the  next  letter  to  its  left.  In  any  case  I  cannot  think 
it  so  tidy  and  self-contained  as  it  appears  in  sketches  C  and  D.  The 
next  letter  is  >I  as  I  see  it  in  the  photograj^hs,  but  sketches  C  and 
D  give  instead  of  a  hook  at  the  bottom  a  neat  curve,  and  the  former 
completes  it  into  CJ  (  =  r),  which  the  curve  suits  less  readily  than  the 
angle;  the  photographs  seem  by  no  means  to  favour  the  0. 

The  last  word  reads  I  fl^PII,  that  is palai.  Here  the  a  is  of  much 
the  same  shape  as  far  as  the  outlines  go,  but  it  appears  to  have 
a  single  horizontal  cross-bar  confined  to  the  space  between  the  two 
limbs  of  the  letter.  There  is  no  room  here  for  doubt  as  to  any  of 
these  five  letters,  nor  have  I  any  misgiving  as  to  whether  those  were 
all  the  letters  of  this  last  word.  There  are  two  reasons  for  thinking 
so.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  enough  space  left  before  the  breakage 
for  a  letter  following  j^aZai  to  have  shown  some  part  of  itself.  In  the 
second  place,  there  is  not  even  a  trace  there  of  the  usual  punctuation  » 
which  should  stand  close  to  the  last  letter  of  the  preceding  word.  Its 
absence  means  that  the  inscriber  considered  that  he  had  finished  his 
writing.  If  you  glance  at  the  inscriptions  in  this  collection  you  will 
find  that  the  absence  of  stops  at  the  end  is  the  rule.  For  one  or  two 
exceptions  see  pp.  14,  62,  and  p.  34,  where  the  point  •  at  the  end  of 
the  Andergia  legend  is  suspect  for  more  reasons  than  one. 

These  notes  may  be  summed  up  in  the  following  reading  i—Pelkui  i 
Pruiamiteu  \  karite  \  iuuos  j  Jcalite  j  palai.    Dr.  Lattes's  reading  is  pelkui  ] 


84.       PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  BRITISH   ACADEMY 

pruiamiteu  •  karite  :  inosikalite  \  palai  .  .  .  The  real  difference  may  be 
said  to  confine  itself  to  two  letters :  I  am  veiy  gratified  at  the  limited 
extent  of  it,  and  deeply  obliged  to  Dr.  Lattes  for  the  materials  to 
enable  me  to  follow  him  through  his  most  valuable  paper. 

The  individual  words  of  the  inscription  have  now  to  be  briefly 
discussed,  with  the  view  of  effecting  a  translation  of  the  whole.  The 
first  is  a  proper  name  written  |V5|>I3'1  or  Pelkui,  the  dative  case 
of  what  would  have  been  written  Pelkos  in  this  alphabet.  It 
raises  the  question  of  the  value  of  ^,  p  or  6,  and  of  >|  in  the  same 
way,  c  or  g.  Turning  over  the  leaves  of  Holder's  Treasury  we  find  that 
he  cites  a  man's  name  Pelgus  (C.I.L.,  II.  5076)  from  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Astorga  in  the  north-west  of  Spain.  The  inscription  is  in 
Latin,  so  the  nominative  was  presumably  Pelgo-s,  if  Celtic.  Holder 
also  mentions  a  villa  to  which  he  gives  the  name  Pelgiacus,  now 
called  Pigy,  in  the  French  dep.  of  Seine-et-Marne.  If  we  try  b  as 
the  value  of  the  first  consonant  we  can  perhaps  do  even  better,  as  we 
then  stumble  across  various  names  the  most  likely  of  which  is 
*Belgo-s,  dative  Belgui,  which  would  fit  here,  and  also  represent  the 
base  of  the  attested  name  Belgius,  given  by  Trogus  Pompeius  and 
others  as  that  of  a  Celtic  leader  acting  in  Macedon  :  Pausanias  calls 
him  Bolgios.  See  Holder,  s.  v.  Belgius,  to  the  bearer  of  which  he  gives 
the  date  280  b.c.  (vol.  I.  384,  III.  832).  These  names,  together 
with  that  of  the  Belgae  and  of  the  goddess  Bolga  (Book  of  Leinster, 
324^,  336^),  originate  in  a  Celtic  word  cognate  with  Latin  fulgor, 
fulgur,  ?ixv(\.  fulgeOy  fulgere  ^  \x)  lighten,  gleam,  shine';  dX^o  Jiagro, 
Jlagrare  '  to  flame,  to  burn  ',Jlamma  '  flame  ',fulrnen '  lightning ' ;  and 
above  all  the  Oscan  dative  Flagiui  cited  by  Walde  and  interpreted 
as  equivalent  to  Fulguratori ;  the  more  exact  form  in  Celtic  would  be 
*Belgiuiy  dative  of  Belgio-s,  the  relative  position  of  the  /  being  due 
to  the  Aryan  stem  having  had  probably  the  full  form  of  ^bhekg-, 
in  Sanskrit  bhareg-  whence  bhdrgak  '  brightness ',  bhfgu-  '  divinities 
of  light '.  And  here  one  would  naturally  infer  that  Belgos  (dative 
Belgui)  and  Belgios  (Latin  nominative  Belgius)  were  names  of  the 
lightning  as  a  god,  or  at  any  rate  of  a  divinity  of  light,  before  either 
was  ever  that  of  a  mortal. 

The  second  word  is  Pruiamiteu,  the  curtailed  dative,  which  in  an 
older  form  would  have  been  Pruiamiteui,  implying  a  nominative 
Pruiamiteo-s,  with  the  endings  -eo-s,  -ed,  instanced  at  p.  7  above  as  one 
of  those  used  in  the  formation  of  family  names.     Thus  the  two  first 

words  here,  j/lgui   —miamiteu,  would,   if  we   drop    an    alternative 

letter,  mean  '  to  or  for  Belgos  the  Pruiamitian ',  that  is  '  to  or  for 


APPENDIX  85 

B.  son  of  Pruiamitos '.  This  last  name  was  probably  a  compound, 
but  how  it  should  be  resolved  is  not  certain,  though  Prui-amitos  seems 
more  likely  than  Pruia-mitos.  In  the  former  amitos  might  claim 
kinship  with  the  name  Amitius  cited  by  Holder  from  Paris,  and 
assigned  by  him  to  the  first  or  second  century.  See  also  the  conjectured 
aamiti  on  p.  22  above,  where  the  original  was  possibly  Pruiaamiti. 
The  sequence  uia  suggests  to  me  the  former  presence  of  a  ^ :  compare 
the  national  name  of  the  Boii  (Botoi,  Bwtot),  probably  for  Bogiiy 
Tolisto-hogii,  ToXtoro-^oyiot  (ToAtcrTo-jSwyiot),  ToAto-ro'-^tot,  and  hria 
from  hriga :  see  Holder,  I.  462,  463,  1503,  II.  1872,  1873,  III.  931, 
935,  and  compare  Comboios,  p.  49  above.  Following  up  this  con- 
jecture we  should  have  Pruffi-amito-s,  which  in  its  first  element 
recalls  a  woman's  name  Prugia  in  a  Latin  inscription  in  the  museum 
at  Pola  in  Istria  (C  /.  L.,  V.  70) ;  but  if  b  is  to  be  treated  as  pre- 
ferable in  this  instance  we  should  have  Brugi-amtto-s,  and  we  might 
associate  the  first  element  with  such  place-names,  cited  by  Holder,  as 
Brugilum  ^in  pago  Cenomanico',  perhaps  *Le  BreuiP,  Brugetia,  which 
some  would  identify  with  Brouzet  in  the  dep.  of  Gard,  and  Brugalina 
now  Brujaleine  in  the  dep.  of  Cantal.  So  dropping  the  alternatives 
we  should  have  *  To  Belgos  son  of  Bru(g)i-amitos '. 

The  next  word  is  what  has  already  been  read  Jcarite,  and  the  question 
is  what  values  we  are  here  to  assign  to  Jc  and  t.  To  be  brief  I  may  say 
that  I  am  disposed  to  treat  the  1c  as  representing  the  voiceless  mute  c 
and  not  the  voiced  g.  Similarly  the  t  may  be  left  as  standing  for  t, 
not  for  d ;  but  a  medial  t  in  this  alphabet  may  also  stand  for  nt  as  in 
Kuitos  for  Quintos  and  Kuites,  genitive  of  Kuita  from  Quinta,  also 
Vitilios  for  Vintilios  (pp.  40,  41,  46,  48,  49  above).  Treating  the 
present  instance  in  the  same  way,  we  arrive  at  karinte,  which  has  the 
appearance  of  a  participial  formation  representing  a  nominative  plural 
karintes  with  the  final  s  elided.  There  are  other  conceivable  ways  of 
explaining  the  word  here  in  question,  but  none  which  lend  themselves 
so  well  to  a  satisfactory  interpretation  of  the  whole  inscription  as 
I  should  construe  it ;  I  shall  therefore  not  lengthen  these  remarks  by 
discussing  them  in  order  to  reject  them  one  by  one.  The  word  is 
probably  a  form  of  the  same  origin  as  the  Med.  Welsh  carant  '  kins- 
men ',  the  old  plural  of  car  '  a  kinsman ' :  to  this  add  cares  '  a  kins- 
woman \  These  words  are  still  used  in  that  sense,  and  as  far  as  I 
know  in  no  other.  Compare  Cornish  car 'a.  kinsman,  father',  car  agos 
'  a  near  kinsman ',  in  the  Cornish  Vocabulary  (Zeuss",  p.  1068) 
rendering  '  affinis  vel  consanguineus ' ;  and  Breton  kdr  'parent ',  karez 
fem.  ' parente\  In  Welsh  carant  has  been  superseded  by  tlie  forms 
cereinty  ceraint,  and  cerynt.     We  can  now  consult  Professor  J.  Morris 


86       PROCEEDINGS   OF  THE   BRITISH   ACADEMY 

Jones's  Wekh  Grammar,  Historical  and  Comparative  (Oxford,  1913), 
p.  209,  where  these  vocables  are  referred  to  the  root  ker-  *  to  grow ', 
whence  such  cognates  as  Latin  cresco,  crescere  ^  to  grow ',  and  English 
her-d :  see  Walde,  s.v.  creo. 

As  regards  the  form  karinte{s)  as  compared  with  carant,  the  in  of 
the  former,  etymologically  speaking,  represents  the  n  of  ^ar«^^(*),  where 
the  t  was  preceded  by  a  sound  which  was  precisely  neither  in  nor  an, 
but  sufficiently  near  to  in  for  the  narrow  vowel  e  of  the  last  syllable 
to  induce  a  modification  into  in,  or  what  to  the  inscriber's  ear  seemed 
more  accurately  represented  in  that  way.  On  the  other  hand  carnt- 
was  not  always  followed  by  a  narrow  vowel,  e  oy  i;  thus  the  genitive 
singular  would  be  carntos,  and  that  of  the  plural  carntom,  carnton,  the 
influence  of  which  would  exert  itself  in  the  direction  of  an  rather 
than  of  in.  Add  to  this  the  influence  of  derivatives  with  broad-vowel 
endings  such  as  the  following  in  Holder's  Treasury: — Caranto-magitSj 
Carantonm,  Carantonius,  Carantocos  (postulated  by  Welsh  Caratitauc, 
Carannog),  Carantus,  Carantorius,  and  others.  Altogether  the  influence 
in  favour  of  an  seems  to  have  been  strong  enough  to  prevent  e,  i,  or  i 
causing  n  to  become  in :  take  from  Holder  such  instances  as 
Carantillus.  Carantilla,  Carantintts,  Carantinius,  Carantianus,  Caran- 
tiana.  He  supplies  an  exception,  however,  in  Carintianus  from  Vaison 
in  the  dep.  of  Vaucluze,  C.  I.  L.,  XII.  1469. 

The  next  word  is  iuuos,  or,  possibly,  iulos,  for  which  I  have  no 
manner  of  use.  I  identify  iuuos  with  the  I VO  S  of  the  Coligny  Calendar y 
where  it  seems  to  have  meant  a  feast  or  banquet,  as  already  men- 
tioned in  connexion  with  the  abbreviation  iu  and  eu  on  pp.  62,  63 
also  60.  For  instances  of  doubling  the  ic  between  vowels  see  my 
Celtae  and  Galli,  p.  64,  The  Coligny  Calendar,  p.  13,  The  Celtic 
Inscriptions  of  France  and  Italy,  p.  95,  The  Celtic  Inscriptions  of  Gaul, 
pp.  38-41,  44,  45,  64.  I  find  that  Holder's  Treasury  contains  many 
more  examples. 

The  next  word  we  have  to  deal  with  is  Jcalite,  which  seems  to  be 
a  verb  in  the  imperative  mood  meaning  '  do  ye  call '.  The  word,  if 
this  conjecture  should  prove  tenable,  would  be  of  the  same  origin  as 
Latin  calo,  calare  '  to  call ',  while  the  form  resembles  more  nearly  the 
Greek  KaAeo)  *  I  call '.  In  Celtic  itself  we  have  the  Irish  word  cailech, 
Welsh  ceiliog,  both  signifying  a  cock,  which  come  probably  from  the 
same  origin :  they  are  regarded  as  derived  from  an  ancient  ^temcaliaco-s, 
presumably  meaning  '  one  that  calls '.  Compare  German  Hahn,  sup- 
posed etymologically  to  mean  singer,  from  the  same  origin  as  Latin 
cano,  canere  'to  sing ', Irish  canim,  canaim, Welsh  canaf  canu  ^  to  sing '. 
See  Fick  II.  73,  Jones's  Welsh  Grammar,  p.  97,  and  Kluge,  s.  v.  Hahn. 


APPENDIX  87 

The  last  word  is  palai,  a  case  of  the  noun  pala^  which  has  here 
throughout  been  treated  as  meaning  a  grave  or  a  burial  place :  see 
more  especially  p.  4  above.  The  question  now  is  what  grammatical 
case  palai  represents.  If  we  slavishly  followed  the  instances  with 
which  we  are  now  familiar,  it  should  be  the  dative,  and  mean  '  to  or 
for  the  grave  ^,  that  is,  to  or  for  the  person  in  the  grave.  But  it  may 
have  been  the  locative  case,  just  as  Latin  Romae  may  have  meant 
as  a  dative,  *  to  or  for  Rome  *,  but  as  a  locative  *  at  or  in  Rome  \ 
Not  only  would  palai,  according  to  Brugmann^s  researches  into  the 
Aryan  declension  of  feminine  a  stems  (IP.  II.  284,  285),  be  both 
dative  and  locative,  but  Stokes  specifies  instances  of  the  locative  use 
of  nouns  of  this  declension  in  old  Irish.  See  his  Celtic  Declension, 
p.  15,  where  he  points,  for  example,  to  tuaith  meaning  *  in  the  tribe 
or  in  its  territory ',  tuaith  being  otherwise  the  dative  of  tuath  '  tribe 
or  the  tribe's  territory ' :  the  text  in  question  is  Fiacc's  Hymn,  line  29, 
in  the  Goidelica,  pp.  127,  131. 

Summing  up  the  substance  of  the  foregoing  notes,  I  submit  the 
following  as  the  text  of  the  inscription: — Belgui  (or  Pelgui)  Pruiamiteu 
kari{n)te  iuuos  Jcalite  palai.  I  may  say  that  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  it  was  meant  as  verse,  composed  in  a  metre  approaching  the  form 
of  a  Latin  hexameter;  and  I  offer  the  following  as  a  tentative 
translation : — 

*  To  Pelgos  Pruiamiteos  the  kinsmen  (give  this  burial  plot)  : 
Call  ye  a  banquet  at  the  grave  ! ' 
But  on  the  whole  I  am  disposed  rather  to  put  it  thus  :— 
'  To  Belgos  son  of  Bruiamitos  : 
Kinsmen,  call  a  banquet  at  his  grave  ! ' 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  such  an  interpretation  raises  questions  as 
to  the  funeral  feasts  of  the  ancient  Celts ;  but  we  have  next  to  no  data 
for  the  discussion  of  them.  We  can  only  await  hints  from  such 
classical  archaeologists  as  are  intimately  acquainted  with  all  that  is 
extant  concerning  the  treatment  of  the  dead  among  the  ancient 
populations  of  Italy  and  Greece. 


ADDITIONS   AND   CORRECTIONS 

P.  22.  Fragment  (d)  of  one  of  the  Aranno  stones  suggests  the 
following  restoration  : — 

IMVMAvl^C  SL]ANIUIP.) 

1 : 1  a^  O  M  3  X    ([TEJKIONEI  P.     Compare  TeMalui,  p.  5.) 

:  I  X  I  M  A  ^  I V  a  1    ([PRUI]AAMITI.  Compare  Pruiamiteu,^.  80.) 

If,  as  I  suppose,  the  three  lines  began  opposite  one  another,  the 
length  of  the  name  in  the  third  line  Would  explain  why  the  end  is 
thrown  out  a  little  :  it  may  have  ended  like  the  other  two,  with  ^  =  p. 
In  that  casfe  Pniiaamiti  would  have  to  be  treated  as  a  dative.  But 
I  must  confess  that  it  is  of  little  avail  to  speculate  in  this  way  until 
the  fragments  are  all  conveniently  housed  in  a  museum. 

P.  35.     For  more  instances  of  Latin  c  iov  g  see  C.  I.  L.  XII,  p.  952. 

Pp.  43,  44.  In  the  meantime  Joneses  Welsh  Grammar  has 
appeared,  and  proves  my  quest  of  a  stem  aii  for  eil,  ail '  second  '  to  be 
unnecessary;  we  have  only  to  suppose  the  starting-point  to  have 
been  alids  with  the  stress  on  the  final  syllable,  and  that  gives  eil,  ail 
'  second ',  while  dlios  had  long  before  yielded  *aZ8,  all,  {ar-)all '  other '. 
In  the  latter  the  stress  accent  helped  the  i  to  become  a  full  consonant, 
thereby  ceasing  to  effect  a  change  of  quality  in  the  vowel.  This 
I  should  regard  as  a  very  early  change  not  to  be  confused  with 
the  later  change  of  ally  arall  into  -eilly  ereill  ^others',  which  may 
be  on  a  level  with  that  of  beird  *  bards',  if  from  bardi.  A  good 
parallel  for  the  Mediaeval  eil  *  second ',  from  alios,  is  the  Med.  Welsh 
ceiliawc,  ceiUawg,  Modern  cSiliog  '  a  cock ',  from  kaliakos,  which  can 
be  proved  to  have  been  formerly  accented  on  the  last  syllable  but  one 
of  the  word  in  its  early  form.  The  passages  to  which  I  refer  in 
Jones's  Grammar  will  be  found  on  pp.  97,  153,  154,  304,  305 ;  see 
also  p.  86  above. 

P.  48.  The  genitive  of  Onnd  should  be  Onnds,  but  the  uncertain 
presence  of  the  sibilant  at  the  end  made  the  name  liable  to  be  reduced 
to  Onnd,  like  the  nominative,  except  that  the  latter  may  have  become 
OnnH  at  an  earlier  date ;  but  even  so  such  a  close  similarity  between 
nominative  and  genitive  must  have  been  found  an  inconvenience,  and 
the  language  probably  took  with  readiness  to  the  genitive  in  -ts,  of 
which  we  have  an  instance  here  in  Kui{n)tes,  the  Celtic  genitive  of  the 
borrowed  Latin  Quinta.  On  p.  58  above,  a  genitive  Mcssiles  {C.  I.  L., 
v.  1438}  is  mentioned,  but  as  it  is  in  an  inscription  in  the  Latin 


ADDITIONS   AND  CORRECTIO^^  8<i 

language  it  may  be  simply  due  to  the  influence  of  what  Hirschfeld 
calls  the  Declinatio  Semigraeca,  of  which  he  gives  instances  with 
feminine  genitives  in  -aes  and  -Is,  C.  I.  L.,  XII,  p.  953.  Whence 
was  the  ending  -es  of  the  genitive  obtained  in  Celtic  ?  Thurneysen 
suggests  a  convergence  on  a  genitive  -ies  by  ia  and  ie  stems, 
together  with  some  of  the  stems  which  appear  to  have  had  their 
nominative  in  ^,  such  as  Irish  setig  'companion,  wife^,  genitive 
seitche :  see  his  Handhiich,  pp.  178-82.  Irish  Ogam  inscriptions, 
however,  seem  to  supply  only  one  certain  instance  in  point,  namely, 
in  the  bilingual  epitaph  at  Eglwys  Cymmun,  in  Carmarthenshire, 
which  has  in  Latin  Avitoria  and  its  genitive  in  Celtic  as  Avif- 
toriges,  probably  to  be  pronounced  Avittoriies,  whereas  we  have, 
commonly  enough,  the  old  genitive  in  such  Goidelic  names  as 
Dovvinias  and  Dovinia,  Ercias  and  maqi  Ainia.  Such  a  name  as 
Kpetre,  if  Celtic,  suggests  to  me  that  there  may  have  been  a  Celtic 
declension  of  old  standing  with  a  nominative  fem.  -e,  genitive  -es, 
alongside  of  the  one  in  -a,  genitive  -as.  The  stone  with  Kpetre  is  in 
the  museum  at  Nimes,  and  is  said  to  have  come  from  Redessan  in 
the  dep.  of  Gard:  see  my  C.  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy,  no.  XXIII, 
p.  39. 

P.  55.  Bitos's  epithet  Aoo-toick  invites  analysis  as  follows : — it 
stands  either  for  Aocrrote^  (genitive  Aocttoukkos)  or  AoaTonKKo-s  (gen. 
Aoo-rotcKKt)  and  consists  of  Losto-iecc-  meaning  '  herb-healer,  one  who 
uses  herbs  for  healing  purposes '.  Losto-  is  a  u  stem  represented  in 
Welsh  by  llys  '  herbs,  berries '  as  in  llys  duon  '  bilberries ',  llysewyn 
'  a  herb  ^  Breton  lousouenn  '  herbe ' ;  Mod.  Irish  lus  (gen.  losa)  '  a 
leek  ;  an  herb,  a  plant,  a  weed,  a  flower '  (Dinneen).  Here  the  Welsh 
dictionaries  of  Davies  and  Pughe  are  hopeless ;  and  Stokes  in  Pick 
II.  258  requires  re\asion.  The  latter  element  of  Aoo-ro-teK  is  reduced 
in  Irish  to  icc  as  in  ic  (gen.  ice)  '  cure,  remedy,  balsam '  (Dinneen), 
while  Welsh  has  iach  '  healthy,  sound ',  whence  iachau  '  to  heal  or 
cure  \ 

P.  57.  The  Etruscan  letters  in  the  footnote  should  be  ^<]^^vl^ 
'  snuia '. 

P.  74.  Obaa  is  to  be  analysed  into  Od-baa  :  compare  oberte  from 
odberte,  p.  55  above ;  see  also  p.  75. 

P.  84.  The  official  spelling  of  the  Tolistobogii's  national  name  as 
established  by  those  of  their  coins  cited  by  Holder,  makes  the  first 
part  of  that  compound  into  tol'isto-,  probably  tolistd-.  The  tolis-  of 
the  latter  would  equate  naturally  with  the  toler-  of  the  Latin  tolero, 
iolerare  *to  bear,  support,  sustain,  maintain',  if  the  syllable  er 
represents  an  earlier  es.     In  any  case  we  can  probably  refer  tolisto  to 

VI  2d7 


00,         rHOCEEmNGS  OF  THE  BRITISH  ACADEMY 

the  root  from  which  comes  the  Latin  tollo,  {sus)tuli,  {siib)latum,  tollere 
^  to  raise,  to  lift  up,  to  elevate '.  Holder's  quotations  go  to  show  that 
besides  the  correct  tolisto-  there  was  a  pronunciation  which  levelled 
the  vowels  by  making  the  word  into  tolosto-,  tolostd-,  and  we  have 
this  bodily,  so  to  say,  in  the  Welsh  word  tlws  '  a  jewel  or  ornament 
for  the  person '.  Thus  we  have  tl6s  tec  '  a  fair  jewel '  in  the  piece 
of  naive  advice  given  to  Peredur  by  his  mother  when  he  is  about  to 
leave  her :  Lady  Charlotte  Guest  renders  the  passage  thus  : — '  If 
thou  see  a  fair  jewel,  possess  thyself  of  it,  and  give  it  to  another,  for 
thus  thou  shalt  obtain  praise^:  see  her  Mahinogion,  I.  301.  The 
original  meaning  of  the  word  seems  to  have  been  what  you  take  up 
in  the  sense  of  bearing  or  carrying  on  your  person  as  ornament. 
Accordingly,  the  name  of  the  Tolistobogii  would  suggest  that  they 
distinguished  themselves  by  the  weight  of  their  torques  or  the 
abundance  of  the  amber  they  displayed  on  their  persons :  compare 
the  name  OvqjSpovixapos  '  Amber-great ',  in  an  inscription  at  Avignon, 
C.  Inscr.  of  France  and  Italy,  no.  vii,  p.  17.  The  reason  why 
they  put  up  with  such  encumbrances  was,  doubtless,  that  they 
thought,  among  other  things,  that  this  made  the  bearer  look  elegant 
and  magnificent. 

The  Welsh  have  made  tlws  useful  also  as  an  adjective,  meaning 
'  beautiful,  pretty ' :  this  is  a  secondary  meaning  implying  a  shifting 
of  the  point  of  view  from  the  means  to  the  effect.  The  steps  by 
which  the  shifting  took  place  are  not  very  obvious,  but  the  Welsh  word 
has  long  meant  both  *  jewel '  and  ^  pretty  \  With  regard  to  the 
phonology  the  first  o  of  tolostd-  can  never  have  borne  the  stress 
accent,  otherwise  the  syllable  could  not  have  been  lost.  It  is  to  be 
noted  that  the  only  other  tl  word  in  Welsh  is  tlawd  '  poor ',  which 
comes  from  the  same  root  and  in  point  of  form  equates  with  the  Latin 
Idtus  for  ^tldttis  :  compare  the  Greek  tXi]t6s  '  enduring,  suffering '. 


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Oxford 

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